Junior girl rugby players from clubs across Whangārei and wider converged on Kensington Park on Wednesday in a celebration of young girls' involvement in the national game. Photo / John Stone
Junior girl rugby players from clubs across Whangārei and wider converged on Kensington Park on Wednesday in a celebration of young girls' involvement in the national game. Photo / John Stone
When asked why she likes rugby, 10-year-old Alexis King responds, "because you can get muddy and you can smash boys".
It's not a common answer you might get from a young girl, but King is anything other than common. In fact, on the rugby field, King is arguably the biggestthreat as the lone girl in her Marist under-10 team in Whangārei's under-10 rugby competition.
King first learned rugby at age five with her family before she followed her brother, Zion, to his rugby trainings. From there, she started playing and hasn't looked back.
"I get nervous sometimes when there's big people but I'm not that nervous because I'm confident that I can tackle them," she said.
Ten-year-old, Alexis King, doesn't let her gender get in the way of being the best tackler in a team of all boys, seen here breaking a tackle from teammate Cameron Spanhake. Photo / John Stone
After loving the sport the moment she played it, King hoped she could continue rugby in the future. In the meantime, she was happy knowing she could do anything a boy could do on the field.
"I feel happy when I tackle a boy and I feel excited because I tackled someone that the other boys didn't."
King's skills with ball in hand rival any boy in her team and she loves it. Photo / John Stone
Marist junior rugby coach Matthew Judkins coaches King's under-10 team as well as an all-girl Marist under-7 team which plays in Whangārei. He said King was one of his most potent players in only her second year of tackle rugby.
"[King] is the hardest tackler in the team, her skill level is at the top with the other boys," he said.
"Playing in the forwards she's just so strong, she'll have three boys hanging off her and she'll still be on her feet moving forward."
Marist under-7s Pink Ferns coach Matthew Judkins (centre, talking with his team) has seen the number of young female rugby players explode in the last seven years. Photo / John Stone
Preferring to use himself instead of tackle bags at trainings, Judkins was all too familiar with the power King possessed, but he said it was her technique which made her such an effective tackler.
"She's not only a hard tackler but a good tackler, you can have boys that you're still trying to teach but she knows that stuff, to have her head down and go low."
Judkins had been involved in junior rugby for about seven years and believed the number of junior girls in rugby had grown fast from very few to at least 100 in Whangārei this year with more in other Northland centres.
His under-7s team, "the Pink Ferns" were the first all-girl team to play in the division last year and now teams from Hora Hora and Mangakahia had joined them in 2019. Judkins believed the success of the Black Ferns has inspired a lot of young girls to play the sport.
Hora Hora Blue are one of three all-girls under-7s rugby teams playing in Whangārei, seen here getting a team talk from coach Lyall Passmore. Photo / John Stone
"The coverage of [the Black Ferns] has made a big difference because the girls want to play and no one in their right mind would turn girls away from playing because you see how much they like it."
With Northland's women's rugby programme expanding this year to include a senior, under-18 and under-15 competition as well as a team in the Farah Palmer Cup, Judkins said the increasing junior numbers boded well for the future.
"You've got three all-girls teams which means next year, you're going to have five and then in four years time, you've got an all-girls competition.
