Just as there’s an art to scoring goals, there’s also an art to making history. And Football Fern #154 Hannah Wilkinson proved yet again that she’s no stranger to either.

Before the World Cup kicked off, Hannah remembered the past.

The history she made as a teenager, when she scored at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 against Mexico in the dying minutes to secure the Football Ferns’ first ever point at a World Cup.

Read now, her reflections are prescient.

“I was very proud of myself for that and it was an amazing moment for New Zealand,” she remembered.

“But it shows how far we’ve come. I know getting a point at a world event like that was of course special, but we are out here to win now.

“As we've progressed forward, we've raised the bar. We’re hungrier than ever and hopefully those sorts of moments happen. But with wins, actual wins that will get us out of the group.”

After scoring that goal against Norway on Thursday, her 29th for the Ferns, Hannah was asked how the moment ranked against her history-making goal against Mexico over 12 years ago.

“I was always asked about that moment and making history for New Zealand with our first tie without the possibility of even getting out [of the group in 2011]. And at the time that was of course special,” she said.

“Looking back we now have higher expectations of ourselves, and we now are in a place where we really do believe that we can win games and beat good teams and that's just something we showed that we can do.”

Hannah Wilkinson celebrates her history-making equaliser against Mexico at FIFA Women's World Cup 2011.

“It was awesome what we did,” Wilkinson reflected the day after the night before, “but now we've got another job to do.”

The Ferns’ priorities are unchanged. On the pitch their aim is to make the World Cup knockout stages for the first time in history. Winning their opening game has gone some way to achieving that, but there are still two group games to navigate.

Off the pitch their aim is to inspire Aotearoa.

“Part of being a host of a Women’s World Cup was the hope was that we would create a legacy of women’s football, and show the nation how exciting it can be and how great we can be as a side. I really hope our win did that for Kiwis,” said Hannah.

Over the first four matchdays, numbers far in excess of 100,000 fans have watched games throughout Aotearoa. For the Ferns’ remaining group games, tickets are listed as low availability for the Philippines on Tuesday at Wellington Regional Stadium, and listed as currently unavailable for the final game against Switzerland in Dunedin.

Of course, before the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 had even kicked off and she’d even set foot on the pitch, Hannah already had a special connection with Eden Park.

As over 42,000 people filed into the stadium on Thursday night, many would have passed by the mural she painted last year to commemorate the trio of women’s world cups held in Aotearoa in the last 18 months – cricket, rugby, and now football. We’re in a watershed period for women’s sports the world over, with the world finally starting to realise its value, strength and opportunity.

“I’ve got a very strong connection to that stadium, and that opportunity and that side of my life is so important to me as well. To have that meet halfway as my creative side meeting with my football side encapsulates the opportunities that football has presented to me, and the success that it’s allowed me.”

Work like Hannah’s murals are a permanent reminder of this significant period in women’s sport.

“There’s a reason why art survives over years and years and years of our existence. It just never dies,” she says.

“If anything's done with art, you're never going to forget it. Obviously I'm biased because I am creative, but there's so much opportunity to collaborate in an incredible event like the World Cup with art and other creative outlets. I love it.”

Hannah's mural commemorating the three women's world cups on the walls of Eden Park

“The second Jacqui got [the ball], I said, ‘this is going in’, because it has to,” Wilkinson remembered afterwards.

“It was an amazing team goal with something like six touches from the goal kick down. It's so beautiful. It kind of summed up our performance, I think we were just so good. We were so good.”

There’s so much to savour about that goal on Thursday night. The one touch pass and moves from CJ Bott and Indiah-Paige Riley. The lung busting runs from Jacqui Hand and Wilkinson, provider and goalscorer. The former’s inch perfect cross and latter’s precisely placed conversion. How Wilkinson wheeled away, arms first outspread, fist then pounding her heart where the fern lies, the fern she’s travelled the world to represent, the world that then watched history be made.

A first Ferns World Cup win. A record football crowd in Aotearoa. A record broadcast audience for football in Aotearoa.

All kaleidoscoped into a single striking moment.

Article added: Sunday 23 July 2023. Photos credit Photosport and Getty via FIFA