Less than two months ago, Rawinia Everitt was named New Zealand Rugby’s Women’s Coach of the Year. The only unpaid coach in the category (Blaire and Willie both with paid gigs as Aupiki head coaches), this grass top leader quit her job last year to go all in for her team. They paid her back in a thrilling final, bringing Northland into the Premiership for the first time since their reintroduction to the provincial competition in 2019. So naturally it’s sent shockwaves around the women’s rugby community with the news that she has resigned from her post.
Two things are off about this news:
That an award winning, successful coach has been allowed to walk away ahead of a crucial season for the region.
That I haven’t seen anyone asking any questions about it.
I saw allow, knowing full well you can’t tell Rawinia to do anything that doesn’t feel right. That’s what makes her such an effective leader and why her players trust her. It’s also perhaps reveals why she left. Something had to not be right in order for her to go.
Not that she’ll be going far. She’s the type of leader who doesn’t need a title to serve. She’ll do the work that needs doing with her Natives Sports Performance crew. They are heading to Taranaki for a Wāhine Rugby Development Wānanga next month. Watering the seeds of their sisters game.
This story highlights an ongoing issue within New Zealand Rugby, that there isn’t a place for our talent to grow within it. Our leaders are treated like weeds because we do things that look different. It’s this grass ceiling that keeps us all from growing to our full potential.
Anytime I see a snapshot like this, I like to take a wider look at the context in which this picture sits. So of course that means I’ve been digging into some spreadsheets.
The summary from my janky spreadsheet
First, a disclaimer on this data. Two years ago, I decided to make a note of women who were currently coaching in the Farah Palmer Cup. This was any woman named within a coaching set up, from head coach to technical advisor. My thought behind this was I want to keep tabs on who has stepped on this pathway given the coaching conversation so often stalls around talent availability.
So building on this, I scoured press releases and team namings over the past three years to make a note of all the women who have been involved in high performance coaching. Over the last three years, I found this to be a group of 25 women. There may well be more as this isn’t a perfect system. But it’s what I have so let’s run with it.
The main thing these 25 women had in common was the majority have played for the Black Ferns. Other than this they came from a range of backgrounds; physios, early childhood teachers and geologists were all represented on this list.
Of these 25, I found three coaches during this three year period who had a “one and done” experience. This number may increase when I get the squad details this year (for example I haven’t included Rawinia on this list yet as her replacement hasn’t been named). Five coaches have not progressed past assistant at the FPC level and only four have successfully climbed up the ladder during these last three seasons.
In terms of spread of these coaches, there are 18 potential teams they could be attached to. With 13 FPC sides, four Aupiki teams and of course the Black Ferns. During this three year period, all bar two teams had at least one woman at one point in their coaching set up.
The two who haven’t are Manawatū and North Harbour. Manawatū being the most surprising given they are one of the more progressive provincial unions out there. They are the home to Manukura, currently the most successful high school girls with an oval ball, who are coached by local legends Kristina Sue and Rhiarna Ferris. They also have a high number of women coaches involved across their club scene so it is interesting to interrogate why this isn’t translating across into the Cyclones.
I have a pet theory about women moving towards the greatest need given the demands on their time relative to men in coaching. Often they are in our club and school spaces as without a coach, there is not team. And without a team, there is less talent to progress any higher. That’s not the case in high performance sides, they will and have existed without us being there.
While 16 of the 18 teams have had a woman in the last three years, last year this dropped to 13. The Black Ferns haven’t officially taken on an intern, leaving them without a woman coach in camp. Taranaki replaced their head coach with a wall of men. Waikato have always appeared to struggle with recruiting women in this space. The only one I found on this list, already engaged by the Super Franchise as their physio.
If we take a look at the trajectory of those that have managed to climb in the last three seasons, it makes a case for intervention.
The coach represented by the black line benefitted from an internship which catapulted them to an international assistant gig. This experience lined them up to take over as one of the four head coaches in Aupiki.
The coach represented by the red line took part in Te Hāipaitanga, a High Performance Sport New Zealand programme designed to develop women coaches. This meant she had the CV to bounce back from an unsteady start in Aupiki to land an international coaching gig.
The coaches represented by the blue and yellow lines had been developing their skills where their opportunities were, this meant heading overseas and over to the men’s game. The advent of the Aupiki competition gave them an opportunity to coach professionally in New Zealand women’s rugby and what do you know, they are good at it.
The professionalism gap is also part of the root structure of our women coaches grass ceiling. Whereby men are paid as provincial rugby assistants, heck even within school boy rugby (looking at you Allan Bunting at St Patricks Silverstream), women have to build their CVs to reach Aupiki assistant status before they will receive any compensation.
When the all male lineup of our Black Ferns coaching team was announced last year, I said at the time that I wanted a 100% head coach target brought in at the Farah Palmer Cup level by the next World Cup. Looking at this spreadsheet, it’s no longer a want, it’s a need.
For years rugby said there weren’t any women who could govern the game. They made the path almost impossible to walk with the entrenched bias in the selection process. It took outside intervention and financial penalty for them to finally allow women to pull up a seat at the boardroom table. When it comes to coaching, we need to do the same. We need a target and accountability, to help cultivate our women coaching talent.
Otherwise we will keep pulling out seedlings and calling them weeds.
With you,
Alice