Schoolboy Stevie-Ray dies a month after meeting Chiefs star

Chiefs rugby player Ziggy Fisiihoi met Stevie Ray Tiopira last month. Photo / Stephen Parker

A rugby-mad schoolboy who met a Chiefs rugby star a month ago has died of cancer.

Stevie-Ray Tiopira, 10, died at home in Papatoetoe on Friday and was farewelled in a tangi at Te Teko over the weekend.

He featured in the Herald in March when he missed school on four out of seven days because of a "severe shortage" of disability taxis to ferry him between the Wilson Home school at Takapuna and a motel where the family was staying in Albany.

Originally from Kawerau, his parents Corinna and George Tiopira and their 2-year-old daughter Poniwahine moved to Auckland when Stevie-Ray went into Starship Children's Hospital late last year.

Stevie-Ray's entire Putauaki Stags rugby league team visited him from Kawerau, and last month he met Chiefs prop Ziggy Fisiihoi during a last trip home to the Bay of Plenty, funded by the Child Cancer Foundation.

"Ziggy was awesome with Stevie," said Corinna Tiopira. "Stevie was still in fine spirits then."

His old school, Kawerau South, did a haka for him when he visited.

But the past month has been a nightmare for the family as Stevie-Ray's cancer spread to his brain, affecting his personality.

"No one actually said it, but he knew [he was dying]," Tiopira said.

"He kept asking. He wanted to go. He was just sick of it all. We got the pain under control, it was more the mental strain it was having on him."

Stevie-Ray lost his sight about a week before he died, but was conscious to the end and managed a few words to his dad about two hours before he died.

Tiopira said all his friends from Kawerau South came to his tangi before he was cremated at Whakatane yesterday.

"We took him for a ride past his school yesterday morning and they did a couple of songs," she said.

"The Child Cancer Foundation has been absolutely great throughout this whole horrible thing.

"Children's Palliative Care has been a great help towards us. The Wilson Home for disabled children has been great support for us as well, and the Putauaki Stags and extended whanau have been our massive support as well."