Anna Richards sick of retirement questions

Anna Richards. Picture / Richard Robinson

Anna Richards got the news she had been dreading this week. The diminutive icon of New Zealand women's rugby is almost certain to miss the entire NPC because of the Achilles and calf muscle injury suffered playing for the Black Ferns in Canada last month.

It's a blow, although probably not fatal for Auckland, who have not lost a match since 1994 and have swept the championship since its inception in 1999. So they should still prevail, even without their brilliant first five-eighths and tactician.

What about Richards, though? For many, this serious injury would fuel retirement talk. Richards' career is full of remarkable statistics, but the most obvious now is she is still a key Black Fern at the age of 40.

"It's been going on for four or five years, when are you going to retire ... I'm getting a bit sick of it," says Richards at a cafe in Ellerslie, where she works for Books in Homes.

"As long as I enjoy playing and I'm in reasonable condition, why not continue? I've always just loved to run with the ball."

Why not indeed? There are two home tests against England in October to aim for and next year's World Cup in Canada where the Black Ferns will aim for a three-peat.

For longevity in humble surrounds, there can be few more enduring sports careers than that of a woman who rejected a law career and has instead often survived on the sniff of an oily rag.

Or the sniff of a fermenting rugby jersey, in the early days.

Her rugby career includes an almost unbroken and unbeaten test run in the national women's team since its birth in 1990, the 1998 and 2002 world titles, repeated NPC crowns, and so few defeats that Richards can recount every one, plus club seasons in England and Italy.

It's a career fuelled by a competitiveness and delight of victory shaped by a childhood in Timaru where sporting defeats, especially against the hated Canterbury, were mandatory.

She has survived a major knee operation, playing on with a broken thumb which then required two operations, and a change of national coaches.

But this amazing rugby journey began in sweaty hand-me-down jerseys and boots procured from a tip.

Richards was born to an athletic and outdoors-type family - sisters Penny, Fiona and Sally all had success in various sports - with parents who encouraged them to chase the stars.

Anna played representative tennis and netball before rugby arrived in her life when Kay O'Reilly, wife of the late Children's Commissioner Laurie O'Reilly, dropped her from the Canterbury netball team.

Laurie O'Reilly - rugby fanatic and coach of the university men's and women's teams - pounced. In the earliest days, the Varsity women would play on Sundays, using the unwashed jerseys from the men.

"They were so revolting. They were just chucked in a bag fermenting from the day before. If it had been wet, it was really bad. Everyone rushed for the wingers' jerseys," Richards says.

Her first pair of boots were hardly more glamorous. University student Richards rang her father, Roger - a joiner - saying she could not afford a pair.

Resourceful was the Richards family motto, a hangover from her parents' less affluent times. She remembers her father going through a period of not only making the family's soap, but constructing their shoes using dumped car tyres.

He scoured the tip to find her first rugby boots, complete with rusty sprigs. They lasted for two seasons.

This individuality and adaptability, a delight in living on the fringes of the norm and following your dreams, is at the heart of Anna Richards' story.

She has a law degree and BA and worked as a tax specialist for five years. But when her employers were less than accommodating about her sporting commitments, and she tired of listening to the Monday couch-potato-sports-jocks, Richards quit. Her employment history includes a stint as a "kerbologist", which is making pavements to the rest of us.

Richards delights, with a mock ruefulness, in listing her few possessions; the first car she has owned that is trustworthy enough to take out of town, a bicycle, and - hallelujah - an iPod. "No, I don't even own my own bed," she adds.

FOR the past seven years, Richards has lived in a cheap-rent house owned by her College Rifles club, sharing it with other male and female club players.

If she doesn't have a treasure store, she certainly has plenty to treasure.

"Money has never been that important to me. I don't need to eat three square meals a day," she says with a now-familiar humour.

"I don't have much in the bank, but I don't like being in debt either."

Black Ferns team-mate and captain Farah Palmer says: "Anna sees wealth in her friendships and experiences.

"I would say she is a free spirit who loves to live life to the full. She doesn't live in a certain way because society says that is how you should be.

"She decides her own destiny. She loves rugby, so what better than living right next to a rugby field for Anna. She's tough and intelligent ... makes sure we do things for rational reasons. She doesn't just accept something because someone says it's a rule. She's a game breaker ... a legend."

While Richards' story may be unusual, the history of women's rugby in this country is a familiar one for a low-profile sport, but she praises the New Zealand Rugby Union's support.

At the earliest national camps, players got $5 a day allowances. Now, they get $150 a day on tour.

Her credit includes a cupboard full of much-loved playing jerseys - she hates giving them away to opponents - and the balls snaffled after the World Cup final triumphs against the United States in Holland, and England in Spain.

There's also a Queen's Birthday honour. "I've got the lowest title. People ask me if I'm now a dame and I go naaaaa," she says, in typical fashion.

Richards sometimes wonders what the future holds, and whether the blend of her law degree and sporting success might lead to a dream job.

But after a life of designing her own rules, it won't involve stepping back into a law office.

"Life's too short to be miserable."

And too short to let her rugby career end just yet.

ANNA RICHARDS FACTFILE

Vital stats: weight 66kg, height 168cm.

NZ debut: 1990.

Works: 30 hours a week for Books in Homes.

Fended off: Life as a lawyer.

Rugby CV: Two World Cup triumphs, unbeaten in the NPC, and rugby legend.

Last loss: v England, 2001, at Albany.

Favourite memories: Touring America and Europe with the Canterbury Crusadettes in late 1980s - 20 games in six weeks and "sleeping on floors". And the 1991 "bones of our arse" appearance at the unofficial 1991 world tournament in Wales.

Hates: Gym training.

Loves: Running with the ball.

Wish list: Bring back the national sevens team.

On influential parents Roger and Marilyn: "Mum and dad are cool."

Known as: A free spirit.

Describes her personality as: In omnia paratus - prepared for anything.

On this year's tribute in the rugby almanack: "I asked them if it meant I was dead."