Photography by Photosport. Shane Wenzlick.
“Two versions exist about how I began playing rugby league. Both take place at the Putāruru Dragons Rugby League Club, but there’s disagreement about who didn’t want me to play.
I remember going to watch my brother Buddy play league with Dad, Chippy. At five, I was desperate to join in, but they wouldn’t let me. I had started playing netball with Mum, but I hated running around in a skirt and kept getting called for offside or contact. I thought it was a dumb game.
League looked more like my kind of sport – the freedom to run off wherever you wanted, fending off kids with a hand to the face and crunching the others when they had the ball.
Buddy’s team consisted of boys I played bullrush with, so I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t join in. My uncle Don, the coach, told me, “Nah, Chippy says you can’t play.” I was furious.
One weekend, Dad was away working and Buddy’s team was short. Half the boys were sulking because the frosty ground was cold and they played in bare feet. I piped up, ‘I’ll play!’ and that’s how it all started really.
Dad remembers it differently. He says Mum didn’t want me to play because she worried the bigger, rougher boys would hurt me. But when they saw me on the field, they realised I could hold my own.
League just clicked with me. You know when you watch little kids playing a ball sport? They don’t even know where the goal is and just swarm aimlessly around the ball like bees. To me, I was never that kid. I knew exactly where the tryline was and knew exactly what I needed to do to get to it. I loved scoring tries.
Eventually, the coach would yell, ‘OK, Honey, pass the ball. Give someone else a go.’ The parents from the other team were screaming, ‘Hurry up and get her!’ They were just bees following Honey.
I just loved it and it became the most positive thing in my life growing up. It allowed me to block out all the drama that went on at home and just focus on my game. I knew from a young age, as a girl competing with boys, I had to work harder to prove myself. The effort was intense to avoid ‘acting like a girl’ – to prove strength beyond that. I had my hair cut short and also refused to wear any dresses.
More than anything, I refused to be seen as less, so I pushed myself to be more. I built an angry, staunch exterior and smashed through every kid in my path, even though deep down, I struggled with a lack of confidence and self-belief.
As I grew, I moved through the boys’ age-group ranks and the boys became used to me. They even ended up scrapping over who got to choose me first. It was validation. They wanted me in their teams because I was a good player – they weren’t avoiding me as I was a girl.
At 15, though, I was no longer allowed to play league with boys. It was probably a good thing as I got my first period that year. I was moving into the fifth form at Putāruru High and, to be honest, in that final year, I’d started feeling scared while I was on the field.
The boys grew taller and wider fast, but puberty hit and I started to spring up. I also thinned out. So this skinny 15-year-old kid started playing for the Putāruru Dragons women’s league team. I was by far the youngest in the side – these women were at least 10 years older than me and, living in a small town, everyone knew everyone’s business.
They knew that I was starting to rebel and lash out, so they took me under their wings when they could easily have said, ‘You’re an arrogant little shit. We’re done with you!’ We played in the Bay of Plenty women’s competition.
It was my first introduction to women’s rugby league and it was brutal. I often felt intimidated and lacked confidence, even though I had come in thinking that I was ‘all that’.
In my first year of playing women’s rugby league, I earned a spot on the Bay of Plenty team and competed in my first women’s nationals. I was just 15, and what an eye-opener it was! Driving to Wellington, I saw the women’s game played on a much larger scale for the first time.
It was even more terrifying and we lost every game, but I was beginning to understand one thing – that speed was my superpower – despite my false start being born with a club foot!”
Edited extract from Honey by Honey Hireme-Smiler with Suzanne McFadden ($40, Bateman Books).
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