Rugby World Cup 2010 champion Doris Taufateau calls her return to the Auckland Storm 'a milestone' as she plays alongside old friends and even school students.
Doris Taufateau and Eloise Blackwell have nearly mirrored their rugby and career paths.
They've won many provincial rugby championships and represented New Zealand together. They studied and graduated alongside one another with a bachelor of physical education. And they both went into PE and health teaching roles in Auckland secondary schools.
And now, the Black Fern representatives will add to their connected timeline. They will be reunited again - after Taufateau took a five-year break from provincial rugby - in a re-vamped Auckland Storm side for the upcoming Farah Palmer Cup season which starts next weekend.
And playing alongside them will be some of their former students.
After graduating in 2013,Taufateau returned to teach at her old high school in east Auckland, Tamaki College. Blackwell, meanwhile, ended up at Epsom Girls Grammar. Alongside these vastly experienced players in this season's Storm are locks Maiakawanakaulani Roos - who was a student of Taufateau at Tamaki - and Vineta Teutau, who was at EGGS.
“It’s actually buzzy playing with your students," says Taufateau, who was Tamaki's deputy head girl. "And [Roos] has actually come back to work at Tamaki College too, so I’m also playing with my colleague.
“We see each other everyday, we talk like friends, but actually, she was my student and I get to play a season with her. I don’t even know how to describe it to you. I'll call it a milestone.”
Taufateau, now 33, is also rubbing shoulders again with Storm assistant coach, Anna Richards, one of her New Zealand teammates in the victorious 2010 Rugby World Cup side.
Blackwell has been in the Storm mix with Teutau since she left high school.
"I’d see her in the gym. She still called me ‘Miss’ for a wee while," Blackwell says. "It's hard for the students to break out of that, but now I would class her on friendship level because we do spend so much time together.
“When you’re in a team, it's really important that you have a bond with all of your teammates.”
Taufateau comes back into the Auckland squad, which has a good mix of experience and youthful players, after a lengthy break. During that time away, she kept playing club rugby for her beloved College Rifles - a club where she celebrated an enormous 150 games earlier this year (again, playing alongside Roos).
After picking up the oval ball to play with the boys in Glen Innes as a youngster, the proud Tongan puts her hiatus from Farah Palmer Cup down to needing more time to focus on other areas in her life.
“I needed to prioritise my family, myself, and I couldn’t do that with the pressure of rugby. So I just needed to get away, and refresh myself a little bit,” says Taufateau.
She made her Black Ferns debut in 2008, at the young age of 19, but injured her ACL in 2009. Taufateau still managed to make the 2010 Rugby World Cup and represented Auckland from 2007 to 2016.
Being back in the Auckland side is a privilege, says Taufateau, who won eight championship titles with her province during their golden era from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. “I guess what has brought me back is I’m inspired to be here,” she says.
“I’ve had to dig deep into my ‘why’ after a couple of those fitness blocks [at training], but that’s it. I’ve watched the likes of Liana [Mikaele-Tu’u] and Maia [Roos], who I’ve worked with, and the way that they carry themselves, serve in their spaces and work so hard, I’m inspired to be around people like that.
"I’m inspired in that space to be better, to be a better player, a better person, and enjoy my time in this blue and white jersey.”
Teaching was Taufateau's dream job and she always planned to go back to the school where she was a disruptive younger student, before making changes to her behaviour and setting goals. “I love youth, I love playing sport - you put the two together and it forms a PE teaching career and I love it,” she says.
The career choice wasn’t as straightforward for Blackwell. She struggled to decide what to do after high school, but the idea of what a PE teacher does led her to university.
“I thought if I was a PE teacher, I could just play games every day with the kids. But it was probably my first year at uni where that dream came crashing down real quick,” laughs Blackwell, who was included in the university’s top 40 alumni under 40.
“Like D [Taufateau], I love playing sport, and at the time I really enjoyed working in the youth space too, so it kind of just seemed like a natural flow on. I really enjoy it.”
The Storm’s theme this year is “advancing forward.” That’s what they want to encapsulate in everything that they do when working towards their goals for the season.
“I believe 100 percent with this team, the culture and the management that we have, that we can do it. So first and foremost we want to get that shield back, but secondly just be better than we were in previous years,” Taufateau says.
“It just feels refreshing to have a mixture of all these players; young, returning, legends of the game, all in one place, and all on one page. I can’t wait for the season. It's going to be awesome. I just feel some fire in my belly.”
The team have been through some tough times over the last couple of years, says Blackwell, but they’re building well for this season.
Their preparation has included three weeks of training and a weekend long camp together.
“I think camp was a really crucial part in binding the team together really well. It was focused around connections, and I guess getting to know your teammates on a deeper level, not just as rugby players,” says Blackwell, who's been a part of two Rugby World Cups, winning the latest in 2017 with the Black Ferns and experiencing the lows of a loss in 2014.
“Even though it's quite a small lead-in time, we’ve had a lead-in, and we’ve been able to train together and be together and work on our things as a team."
As two of the more seasoned players in the side, both have a lot to offer. The duo complement each other's leadership styles and the qualities they bring to the squad.
“For me playing as much rugby as I have with D [Taufateau], she's got a real soft approach. But man, she's such an awesome leader,” Blackwell says. “And you can see it at club level - her girls will follow her to the death, and I feel the exact same way.
“It's awesome to have teammates like that, people around that you can trust with anything on the field. It's so awesome to have her back and I know it’s going to bring that extra head of composure, and clarity that we will need in the forward pack.”
Taufateau says it’s obvious why Blackwell is the captain of many teams. She's led the Black Ferns on occasions as well as the Blues' first Super Rugby women's team. “She represents standards. I feel myself getting emotional,” she laughs.
“The way that she carries herself is something that our young people need to learn. She works at it, she leads by action, she leads by example, and she values the people around her.”
Even outside of their playing and teaching commitments, Blackwell and Taufateau still put in the time to give back to rugby and their communities.
“I’m a very passionate advocate for women's rugby specifically in growing Pacific women's rugby,” says Taufateau, who is one of the Tongan women’s rugby coaches.
“I work a lot in the Tongan space. There's exciting things happening there and it’s a small step in the right direction, but I’m excited to be a part of trying to grow that area.
“Hopefully we can say in five years time, we’re in a better place than where we are now. Working for my people, trying to build opportunities for Tongan girls back in Tonga, I do that in our community but I want to do that for Tonga.”
Blackwell is contributing at the community level through coaching her secondary school team. And she admits she's thought about getting further into the coaching space after playing.
“The reward you get out of seeing them learn a new skill is different from being in the classroom because I guess we’re so passionate about our sport,” she says.
“My biggest thing at the moment is making sure I’m giving back at the community level so that they can see there's a pathway, a future and, I guess, aspire to be like us.
“You can make all these fancy teams, but at the end of the day, who got you there? It was your community people, it was your club girls, it was those high schools, it was all of those people who have helped contribute to get you where you are.”
*Auckland Storm will begin their Farah Palmer Cup season against Bay of Plenty at Eden Park on July 17. For the first time, all 44 FPC matches will be shown live on Sky Sport.
