Honey Hireme on improvements that need to be made for Waikato women's club rugby to thrive
Under the bright lights on Hamilton Marist’s rugby grounds, a group of women stand in a circle doing a series of stretches to warm up.
They’re wearing hoodies over the top of their rugby gear to combat the cool breeze.
They follow the lead of their captain Grace Houpapa-Barrett who has been playing for the Hamilton Marist women’s team for four years.
Some team members are on the sidelines, injured and unable to train tonight. They show up regardless to watch team-mates’ dogs, hold tackle bags and do anything else they can to contribute – anything for their team.
Like most women in New Zealand club rugby, these players aren’t paid, they are training and playing for the love of the game.
Watching on is Marist, Waikato and Black Ferns player Honey Hireme, who is running training in preparation for Marist’s match against Otorohanga on the weekend ahead.
Dubbed by the media as Honey Bill Williams because of her athleticism, achievements and adaptability in multiple codes, Hireme is a multi sport athlete who has competed at the top level of New Zealand rugby union and rugby league.
She wants the Waikato Rugby Union to do more for Waikato women’s club rugby.
“Just being able to provide more resources, specifically in terms of coaching would be good,” she says.
“At the moment you’ve got senior players like myself taking on a lot of those roles and the coaches that we are getting are probably not like your coaches that you’d get in the men’s premier grade.”
Marist competes in the Waikato women’s club rugby competition, now in its second year. Previously the Waikato region didn’t have enough teams to form their own competition, so the few teams they did have competed in Auckland.
They currently have five teams that compete and Hireme says they need better promotion to get more players involved in the game so that more teams will be able to join.
I could stub my toe and get an operation tomorrow, these guys could break their collarbone and get an operation in six months.
“For us in terms of recruitment, we’re just trying to grab our mates and bring them along, but the Waikato rugby Facebook page never puts up stuff about women’s rugby, yet it puts up all the musters for boys and senior men’s.”
She adds: “We have a women’s rugby Facebook page, but it has a quarter of the followers that the Waikato rugby page has.”
Hireme credited the WRU for supporting her at representative level and for helping her get into coaching.
“We are looked after once we make that level, but my heart sits with the club girls that don’t necessarily get looked after as well as what we do.
“I could stub my toe and get an operation tomorrow, these guys could break their collarbone and get an operation in six months.”
Hireme believes that the women’s game has grown in the Waikato, especially now that there are two schoolgirl divisions that provide girls with a good avenue to eventually join women’s rugby.
“The cool thing is we’ve got three pretty evenly matched teams in Hamilton and then we’re getting all the surrounding teams from the wider Waikato,” she says.
On the training ground Hireme puts her Marist team-mates into groups of four and gets them running a blow over drill on a timer.
At the end of the drill the team are exhausted. Breathing heavily and hunched over, they form a circle for the night’s final debrief.
Hireme hopes that they will have enough players for their game against Otorohanga on the weekend and won’t have to default.
Grace Houpapa-Barrett on her career and hopes for the future of Waikato women's rugby
On a sunny winter’s day in Otorohanga, the touchline is lined with vehicles and supporters at the Island Reserve rugby ground.
Marist captain Grace Houpapa-Barrett leads her team out to the centre of the field where they huddle up and prepare for kickoff.
She admires Hireme.
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“Honey is just the epitome of women’s rugby.
“She’s strong, she’s humble, she’s a leader. She has so many accolades under her belt, more so than what some men have and yet you never hear her bragging or anything.
“She’s an international women’s star, but she can come back to Hamilton Marist and still just train with the girls like she’s just another rugby player,” she says.
The game kicks off and both teams show early nerves – errors and penalties dominating proceedings.
Hireme’s impact can be seen on Houpapa-Barrett, she leads from the front throughout, is always the first to put her hand up for a run and is constantly talking to her team.
Country kid moving to the city, I was too shy to trial for basketball, so I went to rugby...
She speaks like a rugby captain should. She’s loud, clear and confident. When she speaks, her team listens. When she acts, they follow.
Houpapa-Barrett got into rugby at Ngakonui Valley School in the heart of the King Country, Taumarunui.
“Some of my mates like Harrison Levien and Liam Rehu, they just said get the ball and run that way and that’s pretty much how I started,” she says.
She left Taumarunui after year nine to move to Hamilton where she attended Sacred Heart Girls’ College.
“Country kid moving to the city, I was too shy to trial for basketball, so I went to rugby because I’d had a bit of a go when I was little and there weren’t many people signing up for it.”
She found success fast. In her second year regularly playing rugby, Houpapa-Barrett made the Waikato under 18 secondary schools team and remained in it until her school days were over.
Then things changed.
“From school it was straight into open women’s and that was a bit scary,” she says.
She played for Varsity. They were the only women’s team going in the Waikato region at the time, so they played in the Auckland women’s club competition.
“Playing up there was hard, man, it was tough going from schoolgirls to women’s, there’s a huge step up between the two of them.”
She believes that there’s still a lot that could be done for the state of women’s rugby in the Waikato.
“It’s still pretty poor to be honest, there’s a lot of growth that needs to happen.”
There needs to be more emphasis put on getting girls aware of the sport and giving them knowledge of the game – and that starts in the schools.
“The secondary schools comp needs to be going strong because that funnels into women’s rugby, a lot of the time we struggle with [finding] new blood and the commitment to that area needs to be better,” Houpapa-Barrett says.
She would like to see the Waikato competition get as good as the Auckland one.
“When we used to go up there with Varsity we’d get pumped, but it was a learning curve and when you come back here you can tell the difference.”
The majority of the teams in Auckland are switched on and professional when it comes to going about their work.
“They’re the best teams in New Zealand and the competition is real even, down here in the Waikato you either get thrashed 80-0 or you do the thrashing – the playing fields aren’t even.”
Houpapa-Barrett says there’s a huge experience gap between players and teams in the Waikato.
“You’ve got beginner teams with girls who have never played before, then you’ve got teams like Marist in their fourth season with girls who have played six or seven years.”
Their experience, and their captain’s, shows in the Otorohanga game. Houpapa-Barrett puts her head down and charges. Her grey headgear is a blur as she crashes through defenders on her way to the try line.
She comes out charging again in the second half and scores another try. It is much in the same mould as the first one – there’s no substitute for running hard and fast.
At the end of the game, the scores have blown out. Marist have crushed Otorohanga 67-10. Both teams come together in a circle at the end to cheer for each other, the ref and their supporters.
For Houpapa-Barrett the best thing about playing rugby in the Waikato is “hands down playing with Marist, with the girls”.
She likes not having to travel to Auckland for games any more.
“Having a comp in the Waikato means you can give back to your club, you can play home games at the club and be back in time to watch the boys play. Not travelling and playing back at home with the girls is just an awesome feeling.”
This year Houpapa-Barrett is looking to make the Waikato women’s Farah Palmer Cup team again, after taking a break from representative rugby last year.
Her long term goal is the same as usual.
“When I first started, I really wanted to play for the Black Ferns and that is still the goal to this day.”
