Kelly Brazier makes a break at the Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament in 2022. Photo / Photosport
Suzanne McFadden for LockerRoom
In her lowest moments – and there have been a few – Kelly Brazier rewinds 30 years, to her 5-year-old self sprinting across frost-laced fields in Dunedin, a rugby ball tucked under one arm.
That little girl is a powerful reminder of why, at 35, she’s still wearing the black jersey on the world stage.
Back then, she was sometimes the only girl in her age group playing rugby – often laughed at and picked on. “I cut all my hair off so people couldn’t tell I was a girl,” she says.
That’s how determined she was to stay in the game.
Now, on the eve of her fourth Rugby World Cup, Brazier repeats a daily mantra: Remember why you started and enjoy every moment.
It’s guided her since the day she rejoined the Black Ferns XVs this season – a remarkable comeback after being overlooked for the last World Cup in Auckland three years ago.
“In the past, I took things for granted. I was used to being picked in a team, used to travelling, used to winning,” says one of New Zealand’s most decorated rugby players – woman or man. “It wasn’t until I suddenly stopped making the team that I felt like it was all taken away from me and I had to go back and rebuild.
“Since I’ve come back on to the field and back into XVs – somewhere I didn’t expect to be – I’ve felt less pressure, because I’m just enjoying it.
“Reminding myself of those two things – remember where you started; enjoying every moment – quickly brings a smile to my face. Then I reset and I’m back into it.”
Brazier has had multiple reasons to smile over the past 16 years: two Rugby World Cup victories (2010 and 2017), two Sevens World Cup titles (2013 and 2018) and Olympic silver and gold medals in Rio and Tokyo.
Her stunning 80m sprint in extra time to clinch gold for the Black Ferns Sevens at the 2018 Commonwealth Games etched her name in New Zealand sporting history.
But there have also been stretches where Brazier has struggled. She walked with her head down, she says, for six months after missing selection for what she’d planned to be her final World Cup in 2022. “That absolutely broke me,” she admits.
Then, last year, her body let her down – an Achilles injury so severe she couldn’t walk – costing her a trip to Paris and her third Olympics.
In those moments, she seriously weighed up whether she had a rugby future.
Her closest supporters – her mum, Gwen Brazier, and her wife, Tahlia Brazier (with whom she has two sons) – stood firmly beside her through the toughest times. “Tahlia was even more gutted than I was [in 2022] to be fair; she’s still not happy about it to this day,” Brazier says.
“I knew they always supported me 100%. But both times, it was something I had to deal with myself, to come to terms with personally.”
Now here she is, back in favour with the Black Ferns selectors and on her way to England, in a full-circle moment, having begun her international career with a test match there in 2009. Back to her roots, as the daughter of an English dad and an Irish mum who migrated to New Zealand not long before she was born.
“I’m pretty stoked because I wasn’t expecting this at the start of the year,” Brazier, still regarded as a rugby magician, with her precise tactical kicking and wicked sidestep, says. “It’s something that just popped up and happened, to be honest.”
This may be her final World Cup, but the resilient and relentless Brazier isn’t sure she’ll hang up her boots after this Black Ferns’ title defence. There’s another milestone she’s eager to reach.
Injury almost cost Brazier her place at this World Cup, too.
After the disappointment of missing the 2022 World Cup squad, she’d dived back into the World Sevens circuit. But her sevens career didn’t have the fairy-tale ending either – ongoing Achilles problems ruling her out of the 2024 Olympic campaign. (The key playmaker had quietly battled with a hamstring injury through the Tokyo Olympics three years before.)
Keen to play XVs rugby again in 2025, Brazier signed with the Chiefs Manawa for Super Rugby Aupiki. Then came a call from her old sevens coach Allan Bunting, now the Black Ferns director of coaching, sounding her out about a possible international comeback.
“I had no aspirations of going to another World Cup, but when I was offered a Black Ferns contract, I said yes. I was just enjoying my rugby again,” she says.
Named as a travelling reserve for the Pacific Four series in May, Brazier was invited to the following Black Ferns camp – knowing it was her last chance to break into the squad and impress the coaching team for World Cup selection.
“Then a week before, I found I had grade-two tears in both my calves,” she says. “But they still wanted me to attend the camp, so I thought, ‘Okay, that’s a good thing’. I stood on the sideline all week watching and spending time in the gym rehabbing.
“We flew home and the next day I got the call to say I was in the Black Ferns to play the Black Ferns XV. I just didn’t expect that at all. But that was the turning point for me.”
Brazier knew she was then auditioning to be the back-up first five-eighths to New Zealand co-captain Ruahei Demant. Standing in her way: 21-year-old Canterbury star Hannah King, last year’s World XVs Breakthrough Player of the Year.
The more senior player gave herself a 50:50 chance of scoring the role.
When Brazier was given the nod ahead of King to play in the second Laurie O’Reilly test against Australia – her 43rd test, but her first since 2021 – she grabbed the “lifeline” with both hands.
“Even after that I was like, who knows? All these things were going around in my head. But once I got that call from Bunts saying I was in, I couldn’t believe it,” she says.
But there were others who could. Cory Sweeney, the Black Ferns Sevens coach, backed Brazier – “a super athlete, super teammate and super mum” – all the way.
“She’s been a standout player across many years, but few appreciate how hard she works and how lonely it is coming back from injury,” Sweeney says. “Her experience and leadership will be a huge asset for the Black Ferns in England.”
Bunting says it’s been a privilege to have worked with Brazier for many years and to have been “very close to a lot of what she’s achieved”.
“For her to still have the same drive and determination is inspirational,” he says. “Being named in her fourth World Cup is a testament to her hard work. She brings a special experience to our group and we’re looking forward to seeing what she can do in England.”
Emily Scarratt, about to become the first English player to compete at five Rugby World Cups, would have been both thrilled and daunted seeing Brazier’s name in the Black Ferns squad of 32.
“Kelly Brazier is the best player I’ve marked in both codes,” she said of her sevens and XVs rival back in 2022. “In New Zealand, you grow up with a rugby ball in your hands, so Kiwis’ catch-pass, all-round skills and innate understanding of the game is typically exceptional. Kelly is out of this world.”
Brazier has vivid memories of her first World Cup back in 2010, also in England.
“I was young, naïve and it was a dream come true for the girl from Dunedin,” she says. “In my second year in the black jersey, I was playing at a World Cup alongside legends of the game.
“It was completely different to now. We had zero tests leading into the tournament and just four or five days in camp in New Zealand before flying over. We stayed with all the other teams and played at Surrey University on three random fields. No stands, no stadium, nothing but the goalposts.”
The Black Ferns beat England 13-10 in the final, played at The Stoop in London in front of 13,000 fans – then a world-record crowd for the women’s game. Playing at second five-eighths and serving as the main goalkicker, Brazier finished as the tournament’s top scorer with 48 points, including a hat-trick of tries against Wales.
“Now going back to England 15 years later and the final will be played at Twickenham [capacity 82,000], [it] is pretty crazy,” Brazier says. “It just shows the growth of women’s rugby – and it’s only going to keep growing. These are exciting times for young girls in the game.”
And young boys, too. Brazier’s sons – Oakley (5) and Sullivan (2) – will travel to England for this World Cup, even if they don’t yet grasp what their Mum does for a day job, or the scale of the stage she’s playing on.
“Oakley doesn’t even know about the All Blacks. He just sees Mum, Aunty Portia [Woodman-Wickliffe] and Aunty Gossie [Sarah Hirini, née Goss] running around on TV,” Brazier says.
“But as the boys grow older, there will be lessons I can teach them from this. They’ll hear the stories of how many World Cups I went to, how old I was or the things I overcame to get there.”
Brazier has learned to be smarter with her body, as 16 years as a world-class athlete takes its toll. “That’s been my biggest work-on,” she says. “I love training, and running and smashing myself, going into those dark places. But I’ve learned the hard way, with my fair share of soft-tissue, Achilles and loading injuries these last few years. So now every session I do doesn’t have to be in the red.”
Her game has changed, too. “I was a few kilos heavier back when I started, so I could run it straight a bit more. I don’t have too much on me these days,” she laughs.
“So now it’s more vision-decision and setting others up. And with that sevens background, if there’s space in front of me, or one-on-one, I have the ability to step people.”
As a back-up goalkicker in this World Cup squad, Brazier admits she’s had to up her kicking practice in the past six months to find her rhythm again.
“Kicking isn’t a massive skillset in sevens, so for years I haven’t done all the repetitions. But as a youngster, I was out on the field kicking every morning and every night, so I have some reps in the bank,” she says. “It’s kind of like driving a car – it’s always there.”
Her versatility over her career, playing every position in the Black Ferns’ backline other than wing, likely contributed to her selection. “Obviously 10 and 15 are my preferred positions, but if something were to happen, I’d be happy to step in wherever the team needs me,” she says.
In 2023, Brazier made a step towards a future in coaching, heading to Japan to coach the Brave Louve sevens side. She still has aspirations to become the first woman to coach the Black Ferns Sevens.
“I definitely want to coach, but post-career. But I can’t tell you if that will be in six months or two years,” she says. For now, she’s happy helping out with Oakley’s ripper rugby team and an all-girls’ team at the Arataki club in Mount Maunganui.
She’s not ready to draw a line under her playing career yet. If she plays in every Black Ferns game at this Rugby World Cup, including the playoffs, she will sit on 49 tests.
“And that would eat away at me if I just left it there,” she laughs. “I still enjoy playing; I still love training. So why not see how my body goes?”
The highlights of her career may surprise you. If you’d asked her four years ago, she would have rattled off the victories at pinnacle events. But now it’s the simpler things, she says, that will stay with her.
“I get a greater sense of pride and joy in just playing the game, now I’m older and have missed out on a few things,” she says. “Some of my highlights are a random weekday down at Blake Park, nothing special, just playing rugby with my mates.
“When I finish it will be those moments I miss, not necessarily standing on a podium with a medal around my neck. Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love winning and I’m still competitive.
“But the amount of time I get to spend with some pretty wicked human beings, and travelling the world with my best mates – not many people can say they have their dream job. But this is it.”
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.