Kalpo Olsen-Baker of New Zealand leaves the pitch with a badly injured leg. Photo: www.photosport.nz
The Black Ferns opening Rugby World Cup win has come at a cost with a major injury to one of their players.
The defending champions beat Spain 54-8 in York, scoring eight tries to one.
Loose forward Kaipo Olsen-Baker was taken off the field on a gurney after suffering what appeared to be a serious leg injury.
Olsen-Baker came off the bench at half time, but lasted less than 15 minutes before suffering what was described by commentators as a possible broken ankle.
She fell awkwardly in a tackle in the 54th and left the field in tears
The 23-year-old Matatū player missed the last World Cup through injury and has been in tremendous form over the last year.
She was likely to be the Ferns starting number eight for the tougher games in the tournament.
Black Ferns coach Allan Bunting said "it was tough to watch".
He added that they would have to wait for the assessment of the players in the next 24 hours.
Winger Ayesha Leti-I'iga also suffered an injury after scoring two tries in the win.
Overall Bunting was happy with their first game.
"We wanted to start strong around our intent and our mindset and you can't really fault that at all."
The Black Ferns played the last 20 minutes with just 13 players because of the injuries, but Bunting was prepared for it.
"Probably highly likely we're going to get some cards in this tournament and we did a bit of work around playing with 14 or 13.
"It was a good opportunity for us to play with players down and I thought our ladies showed some really good character through that and were pretty clinical and we were really impressed."
The Black Ferns play Japan in their second pool game next weekend.
Ireland beat Japan 42-14.
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