“I've always been asked what would I choose and I've always said whatever jersey came first to me, I would take.
“To give up a black jersey would be silly of me.”
The process of receiving a contract was more of a discussion because they wanted to give her the option with multiple offers on the table.
She received a call saying the offer was there if she wanted it, but it came as a shock to learn she had been selected.
Teneti messaged the woman who had just given her the news, to double-check what she had just been told.
“It was all a blur when she called.”
She couldn't tell anyone the good news except her immediate family, but she said it quickly spread through her whanau regardless.
“I didn't tell anyone else before they released it, but my grandparents couldn't keep it a secret.
“I came home for Christmas and everyone was congratulating me. I was like, ‘Wait, how do you know?' ”
Teneti is now based in Tauranga and lives with several other players from the Black Ferns. She says the contract has allowed them to focus on their game and not have to work.
Having relocated to Hamilton from Gisborne for the past two years of schooling for family reasons, she said the move was one of the biggest reasons for her success.
The development structure for rugby in Hamilton allowed her to push her game to the next level.
“I want to thank everyone who's supported me, especially those in Gisborne because that's where it all started for me.
“Trish Hina and Amoe Wharehinga started the first rugby academy when I was at Lytton – it was girls only.”
On arriving in Hamilton, Teneti got in touch with Gisborne-born Black Fern Renee Holmes to join her club team and scored a try with her first touch of the ball.
“I found my love for the 15s game. I was being surrounded by a lot more support than in Gisborne.
“I saw the likes of Renee and Kaipo (Olsen-Baker), and thought, ‘If they can do it, I can too'.”
By her last year of high school, Teneti was already finding success on the field and had to start pre-season training before she had finished her last year.
At the time, she also excelled on the hockey turf and on the water.
She was one of Gisborne's brightest young hockey talents and was a world champion in waka ama.
Teneti was a member of the New Zealand Maori Under-21 women's hockey squad three years in a row.
She was also in the Horouta Puhi Kaiariki junior 16 waka ama crew, winning two gold medals at the Va'a World Sprint Championships in Tahiti.
“My first dream was to be a hockey player and a Black Stick, but rugby had more opportunities,” she said.
“Mum (Louise) wanted me to play both for as long as I could, but I saw a pathway with rugby.”
She has continued to improve and impress, shifting from being a specialist winger into playing centre last year.
In sevens, Teneti is a strike prop but she says the coaches teach everyone all the positions because the game is a lot more fluid than 15s.
Normally, she would have been travelling the world with the Black Fern Sevens, and she should have been in Spain at the time her contract was announced, but that trip was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Usually we'd be overseas at this time, but we have an Oceania tournament in March that I'm really looking forward to,” Teneti said.
