Straight Up

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I love how she discussed racism and her insight to the beautiful Somaon culture. I remember my grandad teasing islanders and I’m so glad that this attitude is changing each day, it needs to stop. This book has educated me. After her jaunt in the US, would she ever be tempted to play in England’s top division, Premiership Women’s Rugby? “I talked to ‘Scaz’ [Emily Scarratt] at the World Rugby Awards last year, chatting about money and that,” Tui says cryptically. “England crossed my mind. It sounds fun.” She definitely wants to have children. “But I mean, like when, eh? But, yeah, definitely. Don’t we all want kids?”

Even though things weren’t perfect when I was little, I love both my mum and my dad dearly. They are such different people, and for a little while I was a bit sour at them for various reasons. But then I grew up a bit, I worked on my empathy and now I am just so thankful to both of them. Ruby on her 18th birthday with her Mum. While she’s had a nomadic existence around New Zealand, her roots are firmly, proudly, planted and shared in her Samoan heritage on Dad’s side, and in her mother’s palagi – European – side. When I see the contract in front of me, it’s not so much about everybody else. It’s like, well, Ruby, is your heart on this? Is your passion still in this?Ruby is such an inspiration lady and a central reason why the world fell in love with her and her fellow sevens sisters. They are breaking down so may glass ceilings on the old boys rugby, not just in New Zealand but in the world. She is key player who said refused to let the old boys club tell her that women’s ruby doesn’t matter, that they would never win any tournaments, medal or world cups and especially she wasn’t not listening when they told her that women’s rugby wouldn’t sell out Eden Park. I mean she only wrote the books because she went to a bookstore and saw that there was only ONE book about a sportswomen (and none from a Samoan I bet). She doesn’t like to be told she can’t do something because of her gender or ethnicity and I love that. The thing about Māori and Sāmoan and other Pacific cultures is everything’s for the family. It’s why people go to gangs, right, so they can feel they belong. So if this team becomes our family — a family outside of our family — we will do just about anything for it.

I had this internal guilt, I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I had no safe spaces at that time so it ate away. But after talking about, accepting it and releasing that guilt and shame [I realised that] sometimes these things happen. She is philosophical about whether rugby, a sport fighting concussion lawsuits and blighted by failing financial models, is in need of more authentic players such as her, instead emphasising how the women’s and men’s games can cohabit the same space. Even at our biggest games, even at Tokyo, Bunts will be running the water out for us at half-time, and that’s it. He won’t talk in any of our huddles, he lets us do the talking. Trusting us to know our jobs, trusting us to trust each other. Sometimes he even walks away, and that can’t be easy. But that’s how much he trusts us.So later that day me and Dad waited for her outside KFC. Dad had a van at the time, so we all had to squash up together on the front seat — Dad, me in the middle and then my sister, Lesh, on the side. Squashed between my dad and my sister: it was the best feeling in the world. Adults had told me it was impossible to get an older sibling, but here she was. My older sister. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t say a word I was so nervous, but inside I was wearing the biggest smile. Then Dad said, Do you want to hang out with her without me? Of course! We had stopped playing for a long time. By the time I got pulled into that interview, I look up and all three tiers [of the stand] are chokka, I’d never seen it. And so, I was like, ‘Oh, my guys are keen! My guys are here for the party!’ I don’t have a drop of Māori blood in me, but man I felt New Zealand, part of this powerful culture that we were creating together where people can be themselves and still belong. “Tahi, rua, toru” were our calls, our haka our full expression of us, of respect for our opponents, of love for all who love us. “Ka pai” when we did something good, and “tino pai” when we really smoked it. When Bunts said “tino pai”, you knew you’d done a really good job. I’ve got a surprise for you, Dad said one day. I was 11 years-old. We were driving around in his van, and I just looked at him. OK . . . And he dropped a bombshell. Things happen in your life and unfortunately they can shape you in negative ways. I became very fearful, I was holding it within me. I actually, in my little kid brain, thought that if I was around drugs or the white powder that I was responsible for killing people because of what I'd seen.

Ruby Tui with the Rugby World Cup - won in an extra-tense final against England. Photo / Hannah Peters, Getty Images Rugby has been a saviour and a metaphor in her life, giving her a sense of purpose – at the centre of it all, the quest to help one another: team spirit and camaraderie. This was true. My partner at the time found it really hard with me being away so much, and putting first a team of people that weren’t always that nice to be around — the rugby life is definitely hard on the families. Also, I told Bunts, I’m not even happy when I play now. I want to do something else. I’ll probably go study media or something. While contemplating the fate of her netball dreams she saw, out of her student accommodation window, women playing on the rugby field below. People often comment on how they love to watch us because of our obvious closeness as a team, and the joy we have towards our game and each other. What you’re seeing is real, but not simple. We’ve built that through having tough times, through not being afraid of honesty — whether giving or receiving. We’re all different people, but what you’re seeing is the team culture that we’ve built, and that’s a real thing.To complete the picture of my siblings, fast-forward till I was 23, and Dad called me to tell me his girlfriend was pregnant. And not long after that, Nikki was born. She’s my baby sister, and she’s gorgeous, and she loves me and Lesh dearly, so whenever I have spare time I fly down to Wellington and spend a few days. She texts me, or calls me, and I always answer any questions she has and I make sure she knows who she is and who her sisters are, always. I go in there and I literally talk to a 16-year-old who’s trying to help his family. He’s studying to be with Downer, on the road programme. You know, he might be struggling with work and family things. Straight Up blows the stereotypical rugby biography out the door. It is the first ever written by a female professional rugby player.