Before the age of 21, Jorja Miller had already become an Olympic champion and been voted the best sevens player in the world.<\/p>\n
With lethal acceleration, power, footwork, and offloading skills, the 21-year-old has established herself as a sensational athlete.<\/p>\n
Having played in boys’ teams from the age of four to 13, Miller wasted no time making an impact in sevens when she moved to Christchurch Girls’ High School.<\/p>\n
After starring at New Zealand’s prestigious national secondary school rugby sevens tournament in 2019, the dream of pulling on the black jersey seemed only a matter of time.<\/p>\n
That sevens debut came at the Rugby World Cup Sevens in 2022, and by the end of her first season, she was named World Rugby’s Rookie of the Year – an accolade made even more impressive given her recovery from early injury setbacks after joining the squad.<\/p>\n
In 2024, at just 20 years old, Miller won the Player of the Year award for New Zealand’s top rugby player – the youngest winner since Jonah Lomu.<\/p>\n
A gold medal in Paris with the New Zealand sevens team followed last year, making Miller her country’s youngest-ever Olympic champion.<\/p>\n
And just as her sevens career skyrocketed to the top, a similar path is now being paved in XVs.<\/p>\n
Her first cap came earlier this year with her impact instant as she started at open-side flanker in a 79-14 thrashing of the United States.<\/p>\n
“Coming into 15s I wanted to put my hand up for the World Cup, but off the back of the Olympics I didn’t know how I’d go,” Miller told BBC sport.<\/p>\n
“I got used to the sevens game and I feel the way I played really suited that. With more players it was going to be different.”<\/p>\n
However, maybe not too different as, having made her way into the World Cup squad, her debut in the competition was characteristically eye-catching.<\/p>\n
Facing Spain, the ball found its way to Miller, who was lurking out wide – a dummy, step and a searing break was quickly finished by the flanker.<\/p>\n
A second try came minutes later, another two tries then came against Japan – one of which came from a breakdown steal before racing away.<\/p>\n
“She’s like one of those PlayStation games, but you can’t clock her because it’s just impossible,” New Zealand back Kelly Brazier said after the Spain game.<\/p>\n
“No matter what you do, she finds a way out of it and having to try and defend her at seven, she just runs over you, through you, round you.”<\/p>\n
A traditional back row forward would not usually have the physical attributes of the world’s best outside backs.<\/p>\n
But with the game evolving, Miller, who puts her explosive footwork down to her younger years Highland dancing, defies the norm.<\/p>\n
“Everyone will have their opinions ‘oh you are not a real forward’ or I don’t hit rucks hard,” a confident Miller said.<\/p>\n
“That is me because I want to change the game and playing like a back sometimes is how I do that.<\/p>\n
“That will look however it looks. It is something that is always evolving.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the age of 21, Jorja Miller had already become an Olympic champion and been voted the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-127706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}