20/12/2025
She grew up in a house where sport was not a choice but a language, something spoken fluently by her parents and passed down to her and her brothers at Clifton Rugby Club, where muddy boots by the door and bruises worn like badges were part of everyday life, and at five years old rugby was simply what you did on a Saturday morning, until the game changed and tackling entered the picture, and suddenly the little girl running among boys twice her size felt fear creep in, not shameful fear, just honest hesitation, and at eight she stepped away from rugby and toward football, trading collisions for space and control, speed for safety, and for years football became her world, the sport she chased with full commitment, the one she believed would define her future.
Rugby, though, never fully loosened its grip, and in Year 12 she drifted back, tentatively at first, juggling two identities, still seeing herself primarily as a footballer while rediscovering the raw pull of the oval ball, and then in 2012 everything tilted when New Zealand Rugby launched its “Go for Gold” campaign, a talent search aimed at uncovering future Olympic sevens players, and Cherie Blyde, working as a Rugby Development Officer in Taranaki and knowing exactly what potential looked like, insisted her daughter attend an open trial, an instruction more than an invitation, one that sparked frustration rather than excitement, because it meant missing a football tournament that mattered deeply to her at the time, and she went reluctantly, carrying resentment alongside her boots.
The trial itself was unforgiving—fitness tests that burned the lungs, skill drills that exposed every weakness, character assessments that quietly judged how you responded when tired and uncomfortable—and she pushed through it all without expectation, one face among 800 hopefuls, never imagining she would emerge as one of just 30 selected for a training camp at Waiouru, alongside fellow Taranaki talents Gayle Broughton and Lauren Bayens, and even then the idea of rugby as a serious future still felt abstract, distant, like something happening to someone else.
That distance disappeared quickly, because speed has a way of forcing doors open, and hers was undeniable, so much so that at just 17, still balancing homework and high school exams, she was handed a Black Ferns Sevens debut at the 2013 Oceania Women’s Sevens Championship in Noosa, Australia, requiring special dispensation simply because of her age, and as she warmed up for her first match, nerves buzzing through her legs, she glanced to the sideline and froze when she saw her father standing there, having secretly flown across the Tasman to surprise her, and the moment cracked her open completely, tears spilling out as she ran to hug him, the weight of everything—fear, pride, disbelief—collapsing into that embrace before she pulled herself together and stepped onto the field.
The level was daunting, seasoned internationals moving with a confidence she hadn’t yet learned, but instinct carried her through, and in the playoff against Samoa she crossed the line five times, speed turning opportunity into certainty, and suddenly the teenager who once feared contact was announcing herself on the international stage, even as she returned home to juggle school commitments, helping New Plymouth Girls’ High make history by entering the Condor Sevens for the first time, powering them all the way to the final, earning Player of the Tournament honours despite the heartbreak of losing to Hamilton Girls, and continuing to represent Taranaki across regional and national competitions, including a fifth-place finish at the National Sevens in early 2014.
There was no pause, no gentle transition into adulthood, because immediately after leaving school she was offered a national training contract, and at 18 she scored a try on debut for New Zealand at the Atlanta leg of the World Sevens Series against the Netherlands, a moment that felt like confirmation and beginning all at once, yet the road was far from smooth, as the 2016 Rio Olympics arrived with her cast not as a squad member but as a travelling reserve, housed outside the Olympic Village, close enough to feel the energy yet separated from it, watching teammates live the dream she had worked toward, a quiet, isolating disappointment that forced her to confront hard truths about where she stood.
Instead of breaking her, that period reshaped her, driving changes in preparation, mindset, and self-belief, and when the 2016–2017 season began with only a one-year contract, she played as though time itself was chasing her, finishing as the series’ top try-scorer with 40 points and helping New Zealand reclaim the overall title, performances so electric they could no longer be ignored, culminating in her being named World Rugby Women’s Sevens Player of the Year in 2017, and then again in 2018 after scoring 27 tries across the following season, making history as the first woman to win the award twice, and in consecutive years, a rare achievement born not just from talent, but from the courage to endure doubt, disappointment, and reinvention, and to keep running anyway, faster each time.
