Born in 2004, Brunt – a prefect at Mount Albert Grammar School – is the youngest of the lot, having just turned 17. That means she wasn’t yet alive the last time the Blues men won Super Rugby – or Super 12, as it was known back then – in May 2003. But if that makes you feel old, don’t worry, because assistant coach Anna Richards is in the same boat. “They love telling me that they weren t born when I last played, so I m not too happy about that,” she joked on Thursday, when asked about her team’s teenagers.
CHIEFS
Chiefs women s coach Chad Shepherd says their players can be pioneers for the game.
Joseph Pearson12:10, Apr 30 2021
CHIEFS
Chiefs women s coach Chad Shepherd says their players can be pioneers for the game.
La Toya Mason played 70 tests for England, three Rugby World Cup finals, winning the 2014 decider, but reckons she never reached her full potential as a player. Now back home, as Taranaki Rugby’s head of women’s rugby and with the first Chiefs women’s team as an assistant coach, the former halfback, who was born in Auckland, says she is watching the women’s game grow in ways she never could have imagined at the start of her international career in 2009.
Joseph Pearson15:33, Apr 29 2021
Michael Bradley/Getty Images
The Chiefs women gathered for their last training session at Hautapu Rugby Club on Wednesday night.
Chiefs players and coaches driving up to seven hours on a return trip for one training session demonstrates how committed they are for Super Rugby’s first women’s match. Taranaki-based Iritana Hohaia, who was named on the bench on Thursday, and Chiefs assistant coach La Toya Mason, a former England halfback of 70 tests, have been making that arduous journey to Cambridge or Hamilton for training ahead of facing the Blues in Saturday’s landmark fixture at Eden Park.
Shepherd, who has worked with the Counties Manukau Heat in the Farah Palmer Cup, said the players will not be paid for their involvement in the fixture because it’s classified as an exhibition match, but he hopes that can change if a Super Rugby competition gets going in 2022. “It’s natural progression for the women to shift into Super Rugby after years of Farah Palmer Cup and there’s a real appetite from the players for it to happen next year,” Shepherd said. The Auckland clash could be the biggest women’s game in the country this year after the World Cup, due to be held in New Zealand, was postponed until 2022 because of Covid-19 complications, something that “devastated” some Black Ferns stars.