It’s been eight months since the mighty Black Ferns lifted the Rugby World Cup, but a day doesn’t go by that Joanah Ngan-Woo gets asked about her hand.
It was during the nail-biting last minutes of the final against England when she won the hearts of people around the country by swiping the ball away during a lineout, securing the win for New Zealand.
As cheers erupted in the stadium and in front of TVs around the country, the 27-year-old policy analyst became a part of rugby history. The feat won her team the Sporting Moment of the Year at the Halberg Awards and Joanah a whole new legion of fans.
“I can’t go a day without hearing it, like every single day, and I just laugh,” says Joanah. “People at the airport, when I’m trying to check in and are really rushed, say, ‘Can I see The Hand?!'”
Good score! With her Halberg Award and her 2021 World Cup medal and cap.
But the day of her team’s remarkable win wasn’t the first time Joanah had experienced a stadium full of people chanting her name! As a four-year-old, her parents Rob and Anne took her to the first Wellington Sevens, and a confused Joanah wondered how on earth everyone knew her name. That day, however, fans were cheering on rugby great Jonah Lomu who, when Joanah was born in 1995, was representing the black jersey at the Rugby World Cup.
Her parents had combined his name with Joanah’s grandmother Joan and named their daughter after the two.
Fast-forward to 2022 and if you were one of the lucky 45,000 fans that filled Eden Park in November, you were sharing the stands with Joanah’s proud parents, who have been cheering her on from the sideline since she was young.
“The moment that actually happened [the World Cup lineout], Ann and I looked at each other,” recalls Rob. “And we’re like, ‘Is she gonna do it this time?’ Because we know she can do it.”
The crowd erupts as ‘The Hand’ steals the prize and the World Cup for NZ.
Their unwavering belief of Joanah was built up after many years of watching their daughter hone her skills, which have earned her the reputation of one of the best lineout stealers in the world.
Her talent was evident even as a seven-year-old. But back then, she was caught sneaking off with something a bit different to a World Cup!
“In our culture [Samoan], when someone dies, families bring money to put towards the funeral,” explains Rob, recalling a bereavement in the Wellington family when Joanah was a child. “There’s like eight grand sitting on the table. We were filming everyone saying goodbye and then the grandfather says, ‘Where’s the money that was here?’ We rewind it and there’s Joanah’s hand – ‘The Hand’ – taking the eight grand from the family and putting it somewhere!”
Laughter was Rob and Ann’s response too when Joanah first came home to tell them she had decided to take up rugby at age 13. Having been told “she wasn’t aggressive enough to defend in netball”, they weren’t sure how she would go in such a physical sport.
Joanah started playing rugby, aged 13, at St Catherine’s College.
“We were so nervous every time we went to her games when she was at college,” remembers Rob. “I couldn’t get rid of the anxiety until she started playing in her first real game. She got into this ruck and she was right underneath, but Joanah just placed the ball with absolute calmness.”
That ability to hold her nerve under pressure has served Joanah well. Jumping in lineouts as a young winger, she leapt at the opportunity to join her local women’s team at the Oriental Rongotai Rugby Club, while still at school. Joanah debuted for Wellington in the Farah Palmer Cup in 2014 at age 19 and acted as an understudy in the Black Ferns squad ahead of the 2017 Rugby World Cup.
Showing off her lineout skills for Oriental Rongotai Rugby Club.
The following year, she received her first contract and was selected for the Laurie O’Reilly Cup team, the women’s equivalent of the Bledisloe Cup. She also made the touring squad to Chicago and France. Despite making her way onto the team sheet, she was unable to make her way onto the pitch. Rob and Ann, having toured alongside the team, were there to help keep the bigger picture in focus.
“You stay on the bench, do your time and make all your mistakes while no one knows,” reflects Rob.
“That’s the journey and everyone’s faced it,” Joanah agrees. “I didn’t play, but I was training and learning with the best.”
She made the most of the opportunity, soaking up the knowledge of Black Fern legends such as Aroha Savage, Seiuli Fiao’o Fa’amausili and Linda Itunu. Their mentoring saw Joanah get her debut in 2019. She went on to score against Australia before Covid scuppered further opportunities. Joanah’s first start for the Black Ferns was finally achieved in 2021, on the infamous Northern Tour.
In action during the 2021 World Cup.
Experiences during and in the lead-up to this tour caused a senior player, Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate, to raise concerns which ultimately led to the Black Ferns undergoing a review into their culture and environment, and the resignation of their head coach, just months out from the World Cup.
“I was like, ‘I’ve got to do absolutely everything I can in my power to make the World Cup, despite who the coaches are,'” recalls Joanah. “At Queenstown camp, I was equal with Ruby [Tui] on my speed testing.”
Thankfully, she impressed new coach Wayne Smith and was one of the 32 players named in New Zealand’s World Cup team, which was particularly special because it was the first women’s Rugby World Cup to be held at home. As the tournament drew closer, the team’s excitement grew – as did the number of tickets sold to the first match.
“Ruby was reading out the ticket sale numbers every day on the bus,” tells Joanah. “She’d say, ‘Now it’s something thousand, it’s something thousand, now it’s sold out!'”
It wasn’t just the team who experienced this explosion in support during the tournament. Rob and Ann also had many people from their past reaching out to share in the excitement.
“Oh, my gosh, people were coming out of the woodwork and getting into my DMs,” jokes Rob. “And it’s like, ‘Oh, can I have a photo with your daughter?’ And I’m like, ‘Bro, you lived across the road for like 25 years!'”
Fooling around with Dad.
Ann agrees, “For probably the last three games, I turned off my phone.” It was the same for their daughter, too.
“Scroll, scroll, scroll and I couldn’t even reply,” she shares. “I’d just like it and think, ‘I’ll reply later.’ But that didn’t happen because it really blew up.”
And this momentum saw the team kicking off the World Pacific Four Series with a thrilling win against Australia’s Wallaroos across the ditch, before heading to Canada this month. It’s also been announced that New Zealand will host another World Rugby tournament this October and this time, even more Kiwis will have the chance to watch the team play, with matches in Wellington, Dunedin and Auckland.
With all this excitement for Joanah and the Black Ferns, Rob and Ann remain grounded.
“People always say, ‘Oh, you must be so proud,'” says Ann. “Even people that I haven’t seen for a long time say, ‘You must be so proud of that moment.’ But I’m proud of both my kids when they played under-eights. I’d watch every game then and I still do. It’s obviously a slightly different level, but it’s still just my children playing.”
“We’ve got you!” Joanah and Ezra, who represented New Zealand in indoor netball, pick the parents up.
And that’s the message Rob has for other parents wanting to grow New Zealand’s next sporting stars.
Parents Rob and Ann have always believed in their daughter – and her big brother Ezra, 29.
“Parents, just go and watch your kids,” he urges. “You never know if they’re going to be the great ‘Hand’. You just go and celebrate, and support whatever they’re doing. Some people value a jersey more than the child. And I have to remind them that children are a taonga [gift] that they’ve been given.”
