{"id":606416,"date":"2026-04-14T14:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/606416\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:36:09","slug":"new-zealand-rugby-legend-woodman-wickliffe-feeling-nervous-ahead-of-hong-kong-10s-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/606416\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand rugby legend Woodman-Wickliffe feeling nervous ahead of Hong Kong 10s debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

She has two Olympic golds and two World Cup winner\u2019s medals, but New Zealand great Portia Woodman-Wickliffe acknowledged she was plagued by nerves before her Tradition HKFC 10s debut on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Representing Aone Sports New Zealand Legends in the three-day tournament, the 34-year-old performed a retirement U-turn to play in last year\u2019s 15s World Cup before calling time on her career for a second time two months ago.<\/p>\n

Woodman-Wickliffe initially quit after starring in New Zealand\u2019s golden 2024 Paris Games, a decision that \u201chit me like a tonne of bricks and left me thinking, \u2018I have nothing else, what am I going to do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Her second retirement has felt \u201cdaunting and scary but easier than the first\u201d, and she has \u201cdone bugger-all rugby-related training\u201d since she stopped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always have nerves and people will have expectations of me this week,\u201d Woodman-Wickliffe said. \u201cI have expectations of myself, too, but I know I\u2019m not that athlete right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PortiaPortia Woodman-Wickliffe (left) is also set to commentate at this weekend\u2019s Hong Kong Sevens. Photo: Karma Lo<\/p>\n

With a sporting void to fill, Woodman-Wickliffe made her boxing debut last month in \u201ca little club fight\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She has two Olympic golds and two World Cup winner\u2019s medals, but New Zealand great Portia Woodman-Wickliffe acknowledged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[180721,295080,64,63,36452,10340,36453,295079,1736,295076,295075,295081,760,85,295078,21418,295077],"class_list":{"0":"post-606416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-achilles-injury","9":"tag-aone-sports-new-zealand-legends","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-cathay-hsbc-hong-kong-sevens","13":"tag-hong-kong","14":"tag-hong-kong-stadium","15":"tag-michaela-brake","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-olympic-golds","18":"tag-portia-woodman-wickliffe","19":"tag-renee-woodman-wickliffe","20":"tag-rugby","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-tradition-hkfc-s","23":"tag-world-cup","24":"tag-world-cup-winners-medals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}