\u201cIt\u2019s hard work,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a choice to do what you want to do and you\u2019ve got to know your why.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy children are the reason why I do what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based in Christchurch, Gapper has previously travelled between cities during Aupiki campaigns, but this year will base herself fulltime in Wellington.<\/p>\n
That decision was made only with the blessing of her children, aged 17, 14 and 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I spoke to the kids and said, \u2018If I have to move fulltime, I probably won\u2019t go\u2019, they were like, \u2018No Mum, you can\u2019t give up opportunities like that\u2019. That makes me feel a bit better about going, because I know that I\u2019m showing them to follow your dreams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad that the boys are willing to let mom go for a few months and my daughter\u2019s getting there. I was very proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gapper says the women\u2019s game has changed significantly, since the early days of her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first season with my daughter, she was 8 months old, when I was playing Farah Palmer Cup, and I had to give up breast-feeding, because I couldn\u2019t pay to take her with me. Now we\u2019re allowed, under a certain age, to bring a child with you, but we just didn\u2019t have the support back then.\u201d<\/p>\n
With such allowances, Gapper takes pride in being a pioneer and seeing the progress made.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the support around us is massive and it\u2019s pretty exciting that we\u2019ve got mothers that are Black Ferns. We\u2019ve got the right systems in place for people to feel supported, and be able to be a professional athlete and a mother at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Gapper admits it won\u2019t be easy spending the season away from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI move up on Saturday, which is going to be a bit sad,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t think the boys will be too worried \u2013 I\u2019m going to feel it more than they do \u2013 but my daughter\u2019s definitely going to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be pretty pretty tough to be away.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the wh\u0101nau had adopted a well-oiled system, allowing Gapper to balance, work, training, matches and family life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a great Google calendar going on, I\u2019m thankful for my family, for my tribe for helping me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside the demands off the field, Gapper had also dealt with the physical toll of a lengthy rugby career or, as she put it, \u201cbeen through the ringer a bit\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve broken my jaw twice, broken my collar bone twice and had quite a few nasty concussions, but I just love rugby so much that I\u2019m willing to put my body on the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no thought of stopping because of injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poua have endured a tough start to Aupiki, finishing last in all but the inaugural season, when they were runners-up with just one win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s been bit rough for us the first few years, hopefully get a few wins on the board this year, if not the biggest win.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says the franchise has recruited some top talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much new blood, really exciting new blood, too. They haven\u2019t tapped into the potential that these girls can reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving this competition, where they\u2019re playing week-in, week-out rugby, getting to train like a high performance athlete is just going to do wonders for their development.\u201d<\/p>\n
After fighting through so much adversity on and off the field, Gapper is simply happy to still be lacing up the boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m at the point in my career where I want to make the most of every minute, every second. We are wanting to shift the needle and get fans and the public excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s hard work,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a choice to do what you want to do and you\u2019ve got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,141304,63,319602,580,319601,8280,1787,7820,248,760,85,1643,320,4048,24351],"class_list":["post-661622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-aupiki","tag-australia","tag-dine","tag-for","tag-jonty","tag-life","tag-of","tag-players","tag-reality","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super","tag-the","tag-top","tag-womens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661622","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=661622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}