The woman who feeds and powers 30 national icons daily tells Ashley Stanley of a career as something of a pioneer in sports nutrition
Katrina Darry’s heart still races when she hears the Skype ringtone.
That sound reminds the dietitian of the call that re-booted her career helping to feed the All Blacks.
In 2008, the team were looking for a nutritionist. Darry applied for the role and made it to the interview stage. But at the same time, she was heading overseas for eight weeks with her husband, Hunter, as her brother was getting married in Italy.
“So, I ended up being interviewed at four o’clcok in the morning in London in Taine Randell’s flat, where we were staying, via Skype,” laughs Darry, from her hotel room in Perth via Zoom.
“I still feel my heart beat everytime I hear the Skype sign-in sound but it was gold because I could put all these notes around the outside of my screen and no one could see.”
Randell, former All Black and Highlanders captain, was a friend of Darry’s husband, who also played rugby in Otago. “It was funny, I literally sat in my pyjamas and just looped a scarf around my neck.”
They called back two days later to confirm Darry had the job. “I honestly just about choked because I did not believe I would get it.”
Darry has been with the All Blacks ever since, seeing them through three World Cups and now a four-month stint away in Australia, the US and Europe during the Covid-19 global pandemic.
Initially the domestic role was for two days a week, but it kept growing each year. By 2014, Darry was asked if she would like to go on the All Blacks end of year tour. It would also serve as a chance to prepare for the World Cup in England the following year.
“I was like ‘Okay, I’ve never been away from my kids for that long at all and I’d never travelled,” laughs the mother-of-four.
But by the end of the tour, her presence had made the team’s experience so much better they offered her a fulltime role. “I was like ‘Wow, this is awesome’,” she says.
Darry is responsible for providing and tweaking every player with an individualised meal plan. And when the team is not on the road, she spends the rest of the year organising menus with hotels. “I also make all the snacks and smoothies at each training so the hotel does the three main meals and then I do all the individual stuff,” Darry says.
So how much food does an All Black team go through? “Most of them would roughly eat about 5,000 calories a day, some are less and some have more, like 6,000 calories,” she says.
As you can imagine, a lot of food is consumed while they travel and Darry does the groceries for the team snacks twice a week. “So you’re looking at a lot of shopping bags,” she laughs.
“What I try to do in different countries is get some of their local snacks and things like that for the boys to try but we also travel with a lot of New Zealand food.”
She’s ultimately a resource for the players, but it’s not difficult to convince them of the importance of what nutrition can do to their performance. “I’ve got the knowledge to help them be better,” she says.
“But we have very few players who haven’t come through an academy and so their basic understanding of nutrition is good. Even just the drive within themselves, how they talk with each other, and knowing what is needed for you to be the best within that team really helps.”
Her professional skills have come in handy at home too. She used the same approach from feeding the All Blacks for her growing children.
“Funnily enough, all my kids have been athletes,” says Darry. “They've all been involved with rowing so it's really easy to get them to buy into good nutrition. It's when they finish.” Her son Sam also plays for the Blues in Super Rugby.
Darry’s own career commitments have always complemented the children's schedules. And the support from her husband and mother have been immeasurable.
“I have a fabulous husband who lets me live my dream but I also think my job is my family’s dream anyway so that makes it easy,” she says.
“Every year I would make a bargain with the kids that they could come and stay with me for a weekend somewhere in New Zealand so they could get on a plane and come and sleep in my bed, they loved that. But now they're too old and embarrassed to come near me."
Getting into her career path was not planned, it was more an evolution of opportunities Darry took along the way.
Her move from her family farm in South Canterbury to Dunedin for study, led her to what was called at the time a consumer and applied science degree.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do but that kind of encompassed all the subjects from a science background that I was doing so I thought I’d start with it and see how we go,” says Darry. “And then I sort of got into nutrition and then went into postgraduate dietetics.”
As part of her postgraduate study, Darry had to train in a hospital. “But I just always had this inkling, and I don’t know why, that I wanted to get into sports nutrition,” she says.
There was no formal qualification back then so when Darry decided to go further with her studies and complete a Masters, she used it as an opportunity to figure out if there were some areas of sport and nutrition that could grow.
She ended up studying part-time and working with some “amazing people” to set up the first sports nutrition paper at the University of Otago.
But Darry knew she also needed to get some practical experience to back up her Masters research.
She was already working with athletes, so approached the local gyms in Dunedin and started providing clinics, offering “very basic nutrition. There was no high performance at all.” And things grew from there.
Darry got involved with Otago Rugby, and would eventually go on to work throughout the Gordon Hunter, Tony Gilbert and Laurie Mains coaching reigns with the province.
“In those days, you didn’t have PowerPoint or anything like that. I literally turned up with a board that had little key points,” Darry laughs.
“I still remember getting my first contract for $2000 to work with the Highlanders when they first became professional. I'd never been paid up until then so I was incredibly excited.”
Once Gilbert made it as the All Blacks assistant coach in 2000, he asked Darry to get involved with the national men's side. She started working for two days a month, slowly introducing sport nutrition and what that meant for a rugby player.
In 2002 Darry lost her role with the All Blacks. At the time it was “devastating” but on reflection she says it was “perfect.”
“I just had my fourth child so four children under six, we shifted back to Christchurch, I had kids starting new schools so it was just a crazy two years working as a mum,” she says.
During the early part of her career, Darry was doing what she could with little blueprint. She had contracts with Otago Sports, the Highlanders, All Blacks, Silver Ferns and the New Zealand women’s hockey team.
Darry admits she was able to do them all because the programmes were not as big as they are now. So it meant she could have her four children in between finishing her Masters and juggling three to four roles at a time.
There is no standout career moment for Darry. “I’m just so lucky to be working in this environment, everyday,” she says. “I'm not sure a lot of women have had the luxury of being in an environment where family has been appreciated.
“I'm away four months of the year but the rest of the time I work from home. I mean how good is that? So I was always there when the kids got up and went to school in the morning and I was there when they got home.”
There’s only a handful of women in the All Blacks wider squad. For this tour, Bianca Thiel, the team's services manager, and Rachael Whareaitu, digital content producer, join Darry. Communications specialist Jo Malcolm and operations coordinator Paula Powlesland are working for the team from New Zealand.
“We all have great relationships. It's also really fun to catch up with other females when you're in different cities because you do have a lot more of a chitchat than probably what the male banter is about,” laughs Darry.
But this tour campaign is a bit different to others, she says. “We all noted that the farewells this time were hideous,” Darry says.
“Normally you know your family is coming in three to four weeks. World Cups have been our longest period away from our families but I always knew that my husband was coming within four weeks so that gets you through the time.”
However, Covid restrictions mean the All Blacks will now stay overseas until the beginning of December.
“So you just have to take each week as it comes,” says Darry. “Our weeks are so different so that’s what is great about shifting every week, there's a new challenge. I'm just lucky I don’t have little children at home anymore.”
For Darry, the success of the All Blacks and her role within the team works so well because it’s an environment that encourages growth.
“And that is critical. I keep learning about my nutrition, my players, myself, and how to work in a team environment. You’re never ever static,” she says. “That obviously feeds out to the people around you as well so that’s why I think it's such a privilege to be amongst all of this.”
