{"id":595770,"date":"2026-09-10T06:24:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/595770\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:24:36","slug":"women-of-the-all-blacks-the-journey-to-becoming-rugbys-most-diverse-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/595770\/","title":{"rendered":"Women of the All Blacks: The journey to becoming rugby\u2019s most diverse team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Megan Compain, who had a stint with the All Blacks<\/a> between 2010-2020 as sponsorship and commercial manager before rejoining again in 2024 in a similar but revamped role, says: \u201cYou\u2019re here because you\u2019re the best that the union has determined to do your job.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then you do your job and you earn their [players\u2019] respect and trust, and gender doesn\u2019t play into it in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is unanimity among the female staff that the All Blacks\u2019 environment is gender-blind. None feel that they are treated differently or have been particularly conscious of the growth in the number of women working inside the team.<\/p>\n

They all say it surprises them when people outside the team are shocked at the gender mix of the All Blacks camp. Inside the team, they say there is little to no recognition of gender, it simply isn\u2019t a thing that the players notice or talk about.<\/p>\n

Teresa Te Tamaki, who joined the All Blacks in 2024 as a physiotherapist after 10 years working with the Chiefs, says that the challenge of working in the team is the same for the women as it is for the men.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about being good at the job and winning the respect of the players through intuitively knowing what they need and when. Gender is irrelevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be the right fit,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd if you\u2019re good at your job, if you know your people and if you pick your moments about when you need to have a slightly softer side perhaps or when you need to be firm, if you do that then you\u2019re good. If you can\u2019t read the room and you don\u2019t know how it needs to be, then it\u2019ll be an issue if you\u2019re male or female.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is … \u2018Do you find these guys quite easy to read?\u2019 When to respect, when to joke, when to tell them off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are a respectful group and it\u2019s sometimes about making sure that they know that if there is something that they don\u2019t like, if they prefer something, whether it\u2019s specifically to do with an individual physio, they need to be able to say it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to make sure that they are very clear if what they are receiving is what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AllAll Blacks prop Tyrell Lomax runs through strength testing exercises with All Blacks assistant physiotherapist Teresa Te Tamaki. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s history \u2013 much like most other leading rugby nations\u2019 \u2013 saw women placed on the periphery of rugby throughout most of the 20th century, in much the same gender-assigned roles that reflected the societal views and practices of the time.<\/p>\n

The men played and the women worked in the kitchen to feed them afterwards. The men played and the women gathered up their dirty kit and washed it so it would be ready the following week.<\/p>\n

The men played and the women attended to their cuts and scrapes. The men were lionised, the women marginalised and rugby\u2019s gender inclusion was the respective team captains remembering at the after match to thank \u201cthe ladies in the kitchen\u201d for their hard work.<\/p>\n

With that serving as the historical backdrop, there is a danger of the female contingent either being subconsciously assigned or deliberately assuming old-world gender roles.<\/p>\n

After all, the All Blacks are a team of young men enduring emotional highs and lows while they live out of suitcases \u2013 and there could be a temptation to mother them.<\/p>\n

The very suggestion sets a few teeth on edge as gendered language, stereotypes and false presumptions don\u2019t have a place inside the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a player\u2019s sick and not at a game and watching the game, I might text him to check he\u2019s okay,\u201d team services manager Paula Powlesland says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessarily that I\u2019m female. I think it\u2019s just that I am a caring person. And I had a moment to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s plenty of fathers that are fathering types. Barnsey\u2019s [assistant coach Neil Barnes] the kind of guy who will put his arm around and cuddle you like a dad. He fathers me. Fathers us.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a people person, you\u2019re probably being a people person, no matter what. And if you\u2019re not, if you\u2019re a bit more full-on, scary, you probably are doing the same, male or female. If you\u2019re gruff or business-minded or whatever, that\u2019s going to be the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome boys might feel more comfortable that it\u2019s a female that\u2019s checking in on them and others would feel less comfortable with it. I don\u2019t know. I think it\u2019s down to personality types more than gender.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time the All Blacks toured South Africa [with midweek games] was 1996<\/a> and there was one woman \u2013 media officer Jane Dent \u2013 in the tour party.<\/p>\n

Between 2004 and 2008, there was another sole female presence in team doctor Deb Robinson, before team services manager Bianca Thiel came on board in 2006 and nutritionist Kat Darry in 2008.<\/p>\n

After Robinson moved on in late 2011, Darry and Thiel became known as \u201cThelma and Louise\u201d, but they never saw that as anything other than a term of endearment and acceptance.<\/p>\n

Both say that their experience with the All Blacks has defied all stereotypes. Darry \u2013 who is the mother of Sam Darry, who started the third test against the Springboks at lock<\/a> \u2013 says her initial introduction to the team in the early 2000s was unimaginably family friendly.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Darry family celebrate the All Blacks debut of Sam Darry (third from left) in San Diego. Kat Darry (left) is the team’s nutritionist. Photo \/ Christchurch Star<\/p>\n

She had been doing some work for the Highlanders when their coach at the time, Tony Gilbert, was appointed to work with Sir Wayne Smith at the All Blacks: \u201cTony rang me and I was three weeks away from giving birth to Sam.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he wanted me to come and work with the All Blacks. I said, \u2018I\u2019m about to give birth. I\u2019m heavily pregnant\u2019. But he said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, take your baby with you\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Sam travelled with me for a whole year. He came as a baby into the All Blacks\u2019 environment while I worked with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe manager at the time, Andrew Martin, who everyone knew as the Colonel, was incredible. He organised someone to come and look after Sam, or he just came in his car seat and I\u2019d be seeing players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey never blinked for a minute. They just said, \u2018bring your baby with you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theil says that when she came into the All Blacks, she was in a same-sex marriage. She has two children, one of whom she says is high-functioning autistic.<\/p>\n

And when her family were invited to watch the 2015 World Cup final<\/a> at New Zealand Rugby (NZR) headquarters in Wellington: \u201cShe didn\u2019t like the noise in the room. So they built a little tent for her in the back of the room, so she could watch it in there with her headphones on and then she came out towards the end, she was sitting with everyone else proudly, watching the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having had four women \u2013 Robinson, Thiel and Darry \u2013 as well as media manager Jo Malcolm, who came in on contract \u2013 at the 2011 World Cup, All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen was keen to have more female influence in the management team when he took over in 2012.<\/p>\n

He had been part of the coaching team that inherited an All Blacks side in 2004 that was still wedded to amateur habits, such as using alcohol as a weapon to foster grudges and agendas between players, and with no rules around bringing women back to the team hotel.<\/p>\n

He, and fellow coaches Smith and Sir Graham Henry, worked tirelessly to rebuild a values-based culture, where the players had greater respect for diversity and inclusion and greater responsibility for living up to expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Steve saying that he loved having some women in the environment because it softened it and took away from that culture [of 2004],\u201d Darry says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe felt that the boys tended to be more polite, that their language was always better in and around us. And so he always liked to keep that flow going because he felt that boys had much more respect for women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the broader picture of pay inequality in the wider labour market, continual cases of inappropriate behaviour against women in the workplace and the imbalance of male to female executives, it seems unrealistic to believe that those females who have journeyed to the All Blacks have found things quite as Lego Movie as they say.<\/p>\n

Surely not everything is awesome? There must have been some subconscious bias encountered along the way? Some inappropriate suggestions or casually misogynistic language?<\/p>\n

Or surely there have been times when the women in the All Blacks have felt they have had to work harder to have their voice heard or win the respect they deserve?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think absolutely in the past, there\u2019s been times where I\u2019ve had to be bolshier to prove that I should be listened to,\u201d media manager Juliet Calder, who joined the team midway through 2024, says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that probably wouldn\u2019t have been necessary in the same way if I wasn\u2019t female. That\u2019s fair to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AllAll Blacks communications manager Juliet Calder (right) ahead of a media conference. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n

Darry says she has only had one incident where there was something inappropriate said: \u201cIt was when I started with Otago. And it was one of my husband\u2019s friends who was in the team. He said, \u2018Oh, I know why Katrina wants her job so she can be in the changing rooms post-game with the men walking around\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was like, really? Is that what you think? And that is the only comment in my whole career \u2013 and that was like 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Compain, who was the first New Zealander to play in the WNBA in the US, the challenge was not about winning the respect of the players but convincing some people in NZR that she was qualified to do the role when she started in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the All Blacks environment, nobody ever queried my lack of rugby understanding or background,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey embraced my performance background and the union was the opposite. I found I was fighting against the union, internally, for my lack of rugby knowledge to a point and then they kind of realised, \u2018she\u2019ll be okay at her job so she can pass\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut those initial years, it\u2019s like, well, if you don\u2019t know rugby, then you are no good to us? But in this environment, the players and the management understood performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gemma Brown, who is not technically assigned to the All Blacks but, as NZR general manager commercial partnerships, has spent most of the tour with them, says her only gripe lies with people outside the team asking her how she copes being away from her two children for so long and how her husband manages.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m like, in the same way every one of these women cope with their husbands being away.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly the same. They cook and they get the kids to school. They get s*** done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her secondary gripe is that she doesn\u2019t feel that the same question is asked of any of the men with children who are on the tour. The inequity between whom the question is asked carries an underlying expectation that a woman should not be away from her children but men can \u2013 and it\u2019s the sense of being judged that rankles with Brown.<\/p>\n

But the one universal complaint from the female contingent is that they don\u2019t yet have issued team kit that was designed for women. The everyday adidas kit that they wear is all designed for males.<\/p>\n

The formal, match-day No 1 outfits have at least been individually tailored but the big hope is that next year, they will be able to wear gear that is made for women, rather than small men.<\/p>\n

The one place that has remained off-limits for women in the All Blacks is the coaching box. There has been a female doctor, a female physio, media managers, business managers, sponsorship managers and brand managers \u2013 but no coaches of any kind.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a reflection of the game\u2019s history and the fact that comparatively so little money has been invested in the women\u2019s game and that it\u2019s only really in the last 10 years that development programmes and talent pathways have started to be built.<\/p>\n

It is only in the last 12 months that the Black Ferns have had a female coach<\/a>. The view among the female contingent inside the All Blacks is that it will be a long time before there is a woman coach in the country\u2019s leading male team.<\/p>\n

But it would be the tipping point in terms of making every facet of the All Blacks accessible to women, in the same way that every facet of the Black Ferns is accessible to men.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything could be achievable at that point,\u201d Compain says. \u201cThe trend is happening in other sports. You\u2019ve got women coaching in the NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t there a female coaching in the NFL? A kicking coach? There are former Black Ferns that coach men\u2019s club teams, and that\u2019s where it has to start for almost anyone. It would naturally be a bridge, right? That would be the crossover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregor Paul<\/a> is one of New Zealand\u2019s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.<\/p>\n

Listen to Elliott Smith\u2019s live commentary on Newstalk ZB Sport and iHeartRadio, or join the Alternative Commentary Collective on iHeartRadio and Radio Hauraki.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Megan Compain, who had a stint with the All Blacks between 2010-2020 as sponsorship and commercial manager before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2840,180679,190,5263,293538,20918,16717,8136,3088,25587,2203,7494,293536,293537,1044,3025,3556,111,139,69,1118,6777,172879,28472,29544,6327,53902,112804,1240,213,1516,7187,1361,223,165,8229,61,3608,102,2248],"class_list":["post-595770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-across","tag-administrative","tag-africa","tag-all","tag-appreciated","tag-aspects","tag-becoming","tag-blacks","tag-commercial","tag-diverse","tag-journey","tag-less","tag-maledominated","tag-maleexclusive","tag-management","tag-most","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-performance","tag-portfolios","tag-positions","tag-range","tag-rugby","tag-rugbys","tag-setup","tag-south","tag-sports","tag-staff","tag-team","tag-that","tag-the","tag-their","tag-they","tag-to","tag-were","tag-with","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595770","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=595770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}