Evergreen Black Fern Carla Hohepa has just spent two of the best weeks in her career winning Super Rugby Aupiki with Chiefs Manawa. And she had a little sidekick, who played his part too.
As Carla Hohepa watched her three-year-old son, Kojiro, run on to the field before the kick-off in the final game in Super Rugby Aupiki, she momentarily lost all her nervousness.
Little Koji was delivering the game ball with his eight-year-old cousin, Aria - daughter of Hohepa’s sister Chyna - who was sitting on the bench for Chiefs Manawa.
“It was so cool because it snapped me out of being super nervous,” recalls Hohepa, who was second-five in the Chiefs backline in their clash with the women of the Blues. “As soon as I saw him, I had the biggest smile. I almost had to give myself a slap on the face to crack back into game mode.
“I looked around and could see all the other girls had big smiles too. All of Koji’s new aunties.
“It topped off the whole time we were living in the Chiefs bubble.”
Well, almost topped it all off. Winning the inaugural Super Rugby Aupiki title was right up there, she admits. In fact, the Black Fern says it was two of the best weeks in her long and successful career.
The Hohepa sisters played their part in rugby history, as the first professional women’s rugby competition ran its zigzagging course over the past fortnight and a bit. And they’re thankful two of their children could be part of the groundbreaking occasion as well.
A two-time World Cup winner, Carla Hohepa splits her year between her hometown of Te Awamutu, and the Japanese city of Fukuoka.
Her long-time partner, Karne Hesketh, plays rugby for the Fukuoka Sanix Blues. He’s there now, with their eldest son, Cohen, and they’ll be joining Hohepa and Kojiro here when the Japanese season ends.
In the meantime, Hohepa will continue training in the Black Ferns hub in Hamilton, as one of the 29 contracted players working towards their first home World Cup in October.
When the Super Rugby Aupiki tournament was moved into a bubble in Taupō to protect the teams from Covid, the Chiefs went out of their way to ensure Carla and Chyna Hohepa could bring their kids with them.
“It was incredible to have my son along with me in the bubble,” Carla Hohepa says. “At first it was a bit nervewracking, knowing there was literally no contact with the outside world. We had to deal with what we had at Wairakei Resort, but we actually had amazing facilities - a pool and a playground and fields for the kids to run around in. It was a dream two-and-a-half weeks in Taupō.
“In retrospect, I think we were quite lucky we were with the children. Aria and Kojiro helped each other survive in the bubble just as much as me and my sister did. It was a special moment that will be etched in my memory forever.”
While the sisters were training and playing, they had a special minder step in.
“We were lucky enough that the team management and the Chiefs whānau were able to get us Beth, our nanny who came away with us. She’s a student at Waikato University and she took over when we needed to be in the team environment,” Hohepa says.
“At nighttime, I was back being Mum again, back to everyday life. When you’re a professional athlete and a mum, you don’t have a day off.
“But I wasn’t alone in the process - Koji had 40 aunties doting over him. We were so lucky to be involved in the Chiefs Manawa side.”
Now back at home in Te Awamutu, on a week’s break from training, Hohepa misses bubble life. And she imagines Koji does, too.
“I was saying to the girls, now we’re home, he’s going to think I’m the most boring mum ever,” she laughs.
Koji has toured with his mum before, a baby just starting to walk when he was part of the Black Ferns squad at the Super Series in San Diego in 2019. NZ Rugby’s contracts offer support for mothers in the international squads.
“He understands when I say ‘Mum has to go to mahi, I’m going to rugby’,” Hohepa says. “But one day I hope he’ll understand the magnitude of it, of going on tour with Mum and all these amazing women around him.”
Hohepa herself is still taking in the significance of the last two-and-a-half weeks.
“I’ve been involved in rugby for a very long time so to have that historic moment for women’s rugby and to now call myself a Super Rugby player is pretty special. I’m grateful to still be running around with these girls, and achieve that milestone,” the 36-year-old says.
The star-laden Chiefs Manawa won all three games they played in the condensed tournament – overcoming Matatū 17-15 in the opening game, rolling the Hurricanes Poua 29-8, before storming to a 35-0 defeat of the Blues on Sunday night in what became the championship decider.
While the Blues and Hurricanes were hit hard by Covid cases in their ranks, the Chiefs escaped the grip of the virus (although Hohepa had Covid when she was back in Japan).
Hohepa puts it down to the team’s doctor, “Dr Deb” Robinson (who’s been physician to both the Black Ferns and the All Blacks), who made sure the team did everything by the book. “She’s the reason we steered clear of Covid that whole time,” Hohepa says.
While Aupiki didn’t run as originally planned, Hohepa believes it still achieved most of what the competition set out to do for women’s rugby.
“It showed what we can produce. There are so many people who say: ‘It’s not as good as men’s rugby’. But yes, it is,” she says. “We didn’t get a pre-season build-up, we didn’t get the week-in, week-out training schedules that we need. And yet, we were able to play some amazing rugby.
“Imagine what we could be producing as female rugby players if the support was even bigger. I know it’s a starting point and we’ve been waiting for it for a long time. But I can’t wait for more of everything to come for the future women who will one day get to take up these opportunities.”
Hohepa, who’s been playing the game since 2006, admits there was some caution among the senior players going into the tournament.
“We were wary of what could happen potentially, having played no rugby for eight months before this competition, and then suddenly having no pre-season games and going straight into Aupiki. It was a scary thought for all of us,” she says.
“But to see what we actually did without any preparation, was like ‘Wow, we are actually capable of so much more’,” she says. “I’m just so grateful to have got out and played rugby again with some of the best players in the world.”
While the list of Black Ferns in the Chiefs Manawa was long, and coached by Olympic sevens gold medallist coach Alan Bunting, Hohepa was impressed with the younger, greener players who had the opportunity to star on a new stage.
“Having all that experience helped this team succeed, but it was also down to the girls coming through who’d never played at a higher level than FPC,” she says. “That’s only going to benefit the Black Ferns.
“I can’t wait to see this competition expand overseas as well. To take it abroad will be the next step, which will only make a stronger pathway for girls in school rugby.”
And Hohepa has huge respect for the players who left Hamilton late on Sunday night to return to work on Monday morning.
“I was absolutely shattered, so I have so much respect for all those women who had to go home then go to their jobs the next day. It was a really hard two-and-a-half weeks, with all the ups and downs, stresses and changes to the competition,” she says.
Chyna Hohepa was one of them – the Waikato captain returning to her role as a sales consultant at a joinery firm in Te Awamutu.
Taking it slowly on her week's break, Carla Hohepa is relieved to have walked off FMG Stadium Waikato on Sunday night without an injury.
“A few years ago that was one of my things. I’d walk off praying I didn’t have an injury,” she says. Her previous list includes two ACL tears, a torn meniscus, an Achilles rupture, and a broken wrist. “This time I came out unscathed, so I’m feeling really good and can’t wait to get back training toward the bigger picture at the end of the year.”
There’s no guarantee the 28-test veteran (who scored the winning try in the Black Ferns’ 2010 World Cup final victory over England) will make the World Cup side again. But she’s not fazed by that.
“Even if I’m not playing, it’s so important to me that every single player in that black jersey comes away as world champions. And I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens,” she says.
“I will be praying that I’m one of those women who gets the privilege of going on that journey. But either way, I want it for every single person who’s paved the way for women’s rugby in this country, to take the title on home soil.”
