Kiwi Ferns fullback Apii Nicholls is proof that a full cup helps bring out the best in a player.<\/p>\n
The Warriors’ best in the NRLW this season, Nicholls will on Sunday help lead New Zealand’s charge against a red-hot Australia in the Pacific Cup.<\/p>\n
There watching at Eden Park will be her two boys, four-year-old Felix and 13-year-old Siona.<\/p>\n
For the two years prior to this one, Nicholls played her rugby league in the most difficult circumstances, with no Warriors in the NRLW.<\/p>\n
After taking time out of the sport, she returned with Canberra, forced to play with Felix with her in Australia and Siona back across the Tasman because of school.<\/p>\n
“It was challenging, very tough,” Nicholls told AAP. <\/p>\n
“I’m certainly thankful for video calls.<\/p>\n
“Throughout the whole four or five months I was in Canberra, he would only travel the once to spend some time with me \u2013 and that was just during school holidays.<\/p>\n
“But, coming back this year, I was able to see how grateful he was for me to be back, spending more time with him.<\/p>\n
“I really love just having him there and seeing him after the game, just seeing how proud he is. I don’t actually see that when I am across the ditch.”<\/p>\n
It’s no surprise then that one of the best years of Nicholls’ career has coincided with her return home to the Warriors on their readmission to the competition.<\/p>\n
“Having your cup full, it just helps you reset and come out stronger,” Nicholls said. <\/p>\n
“It makes me proud just being home and I get to share that with him here and get to have him involved more in our Warriors space.<\/p>\n
“He gets to express how he’s actually feeling about what I’m doing out there. With Canberra, he didn’t get to see it, to feel it or be in that environment.<\/p>\n
“It was a big eye-opener for me too just being able to be present to teach him, because he wants to get into this space in the future.”<\/p>\n
On the field, Nicholls’ game has also evolved since she last faced the Jillaroos last year.<\/p>\n
With Ronald Griffiths taking charge of the Warriors, the 32-year-old’s attacking game has improved at fullback, and she’s also settled into the idea of leadership.<\/p>\n
“In the past few years I was kind of doing the same thing over and over again and there was nothing different about my game,” Nicholls said.<\/p>\n
“Ron’s seen potential in some things that I’ve done and he’s given me those opportunities to take it. <\/p>\n
“I’ve slowly added things to my game, which is just the starting point.<\/p>\n
“I’m excited for it because I’ve wanted it so bad. <\/p>\n
“But I haven’t actually had someone give me that opportunity to grow my attacking game, because I feel like I’ve just always been really focused on defence.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi Ferns fullback Apii Nicholls is proof that a full cup helps bring out the best in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[836,66885,66887,111,43,139,577,69,80275,45603,80276,3006,2248,2834],"class_list":["post-112357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-836","tag-go-media","tag-mt-smart","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-nzl","tag-rugby-league","tag-telstra-premiership","tag-warriors","tag-women","tag-womens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}