Clearly there is much more pressure on the Matildas to do well in the world cup than the football ferns.
Maybe I'm generalising here but it honestly seems like the majority of football fans in NZ don't give a hoot about the Ferns. It's only really on forums like this that I see any genuine critique, on the Ferns social pages it's mostly just 10ish comments like "amazing girls" or "well done another win" or "unlucky you did us proud" etc.
Not saying that being negative is better (it's not) but again a generalisation, I guess it seems like Aussies care about the Matildas and Kiwis just aren't very interested in the Ferns. Hence the level of scrutiny is levels greater.
This is a very big reason why the interest levels would seem much higher in Aussie. As a random guess the Matildas have played 15-20 games at home since Ferns hosted Japan. Many profile high teams like USA and Canada
It’s night verus day re marketing your team before a home World Cup. At least Pragnell seems to be trying to bring games to NZ for Ferns and AWs. But NZF just lacks the financial resources of FA re bringing teams downunder esp now the AWs have failed to make Qatar with its $16M (about that from memory) pay cheque
But hopefully a few nations will want to visit NZ prior WWC to check out the facilities etc.
Also many of the Matildas like Sam Kerr started their pro careers in the ALW. None of the Ferns started their pro careers in NZ, very few in the ALW. Most left NZ as teenagers, some like Riley & Stott have never even lived in NZ - so their profile is naturally lower compared to a Kerr (a genuine world class star in her own right)