I’ve been called a blueberry muffin just because I bruise so easily,” laughs Paris Lokotui of the speckling her body gets from playing top-level rugby in the national Super Rugby Aupiki competition.
As a debutant for South Island team Matatū, the netball convert from the 2025 ANZ Premiership-winning Tactix side is now testing herself to the limit against a host of Black Ferns.
“I haven’t been used to all the contact,” Paris, 24, admits of adjusting to the physicality, while still learning her new sport’s finer points.
“I love a challenge and doing something that takes me outside my comfort zone.”
The push she didn’t know she needed
Paris is still pinching herself that, from game one, her Matatū coaches had the confidence to put her in the starting line-up. Now, her Christchurch-based team is on the brink of playing in the Aupiki final on July 25.
She expected her season to start on the bench. Instead, she had the thrill of running out in the team’s first game at Te Kaha stadium in front of a crowd of 11,793 people, a women’s rugby record for a standalone domestic game in New Zealand.
“It’s so loud and people get behind you, and everyone’s cheering, so it’s pretty awesome,” Paris says.
“The growth of women’s sport is amazing, but I know that there’s a long way to go, including financially.”
Twenty members of her tight-knit family were in the crowd, led by her parents Tukulua “Lua” Lokotui and Jasmine (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kurii, Te Aupōuri and Te Rarawa).
Following her dad’s footsteps
Dad is a former Tongan international lock who went to two Rugby World Cups, and lived and played in England, France and Japan, where Paris grew up from age five to eight.
“We got to travel the world with him, go to his games and experience that kind of high-performance sport really early on,” she recalls.
“I just really wanted to be part of a community like that, with friends around the world. It’s something that I wanted to strive for.”
Those potentially greater future opportunities swayed her decision to switch code. It was a big call, after earlier making a Silver Ferns squad but not yet debuting in the black dress.
But after playing 50 ANZ games for the Mainland Tactix and before that the Pulse from age 19 in her Wellington hometown, Paris was ready to draw a line under the dream.
“Post-winning the final, I was pretty content with where my netball was at,” she explains.
“I’d kind of completed everything I wanted to, represented Wellington, represented Christchurch, won a national championship and been part of the Silver Ferns environment.”
And with world-class athletes playing her wing defence and goal defence positions [in Kate Heffernan and Karin Burger], she wasn’t sure what more she could do to get ahead.
“I just thought, ‘Why not do something completely different?’” she explains.
Making her parents proud
Paris has always thrown herself into sports, including in her teenage days when she made age-group national sides in water polo, basketball, then netball.
“I always wanted to make my parents proud,” she shares.
But Paris says there was never parental pressure.
“They just want me to be the best person first. That’s a really cool value that they’ve instilled in me.”
Her dad remains her idol, “because he did everything he wanted to achieve”.
“And Portia,” she adds of retired rugby superstar winger Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, an earlier elite netball convert.
Paris has slotted into Matatū as a lock or loosie. She now relishes the contact that being a forward brings, putting out of her mind the voice that says, “Just don’t get hurt.”
She enthuses, “I just love working for my mate next to me and they’re going to have to do it too. You’re all working for each other. I love what rugby brings in terms of hitting people and looking for the ball.”
The support of her team
Packing down behind Paris in the Matutū scrum is standout number eight Kaipo Olsen-Baker and super-supportive fellow Black Fern Laura Bayfield. Pregnant Ferns lock Chelsea Bremner provides invaluable lineout jumping advice.
“I’m kind of like a wobbly snake, but I’m just trying to stay still and strong, knowing that they’ll be there and able to bring me down safely,” reflects Paris.
Having finished a Bachelor of Commerce in Management and Māori studies, Paris now does shifts as a lifeguard to help switch gear from rugby.
She also loves chilling out with her new rugby friends and relatives.
Paris will, of course, cheer on the Silver Ferns at the Commonwealth Games, but her own ambitions are now firmly in rugby.
“I’m just trying to ride the wave and see where it goes,” she says.
Watch the Super Rugby Aupiki final Saturday, July 25, from 3.30pm on Sky Sport 1 and Sky Open.
