Gold Coast mum Anna Byrne, pictured with her All Blacks singlet-clad daughter Sahara Hart. Byrne is raising her two kids to support the All Blacks, despite their being born and living in Australia, like her.
Gold Coast mum Anna Byrne, pictured with her All Blacks singlet-clad daughter Sahara Hart. Byrne is raising her two kids to support the All Blacks, despite their being born and living in Australia, like her.
She still calls Australia home, but forget True Blue - Anna Byrne is strictly All Black.
The Gold Coast mum was born and raised in Australia, is married to an Australian and has brought two little Ockers into the world.
But when the Rugby World Cup kicks off the family lawyer will be pulling on her All Black merch and settling in, probably alongside son Carter - have a guess where he got his name - to watch her team’s opening match against France in Paris early Saturday morning (NZT).
She should be there, Byrne said, with the family-of-four buying tickets to enjoy the Cup opener and three other matches alongside her mum and stepdad.
The World Cup devotees have previously attended the 2007, 2011 and 2015 tournaments.
All Blacks superfan Anna Byrne, right, has supported the side at three previous Rugby World Cups, including their triumphant 2015 tournament in the United Kingdom, where she is pictured with a friend on their way to a match.
But her husband Damien Hart can’t fly after suffering a serious head injury at work last year.
“We’ve still got tickets. My mum’s gonna be sitting next to four empty seats because we can’t go.
Asked why she supported a side fellow Australians would consider the Wallabies arch-nemesis, the 38-year-old’s answer is as sharp as the boot of her little boy’s namesake.
“They win.”
Or at least they did when she was a child going to Bledisloe Cup matches in Australia in the early 1990s with her Kiwi mum, Aussie dad and older brother.
“We were never given a choice [to support Australia] … and it was a time when New Zealand didn’t lose, so it’s very easy, when you’re not given a choice, to support a team you know is going to win.
“Because of that it makes it easier now to continue to support them when they’re not doing so great.”
Anna Byrne has been going to All Blacks games with her mum, Heather Byrne, since she was a child and although Australian-born, she has New Zealand citizenship and considers herself a Kiwi. They're pictured together at a match for one of the side's successful campaigns, the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
Her dad had always supported the Wallabies, but his passion for the national side was left for dust by her mum’s All Black heart, something she passed on to her Aussie kids and, now, grandkids.
While mum Heather Byrne lives near Christchurch - the old home of former All Black captain and Crusaders’ stalwart Todd Blackadder - she’s a frequent Gold Coast visitor, and continuing influence on the next generation of Aussie All Blacks’ super fans.
“She’s hardcore, she’s insane. Now when she’s watching the rugby with my [6-year-old] daughter Sahara, my daughter goes nuts with mum … she sits there, in her All Black jersey, and screams at the TV with me and mum.”
Could Carter Hart, pictured soon after his 2019 birth, be the only baby born in Australia, and to Australian parents, named after a famous All Black?
Meanwhile, Carter - who turns 4 the same day as the Cup opener - is happy to back whoever mum’s cheering for, Byrne said.
He’s already pulling on his own kit for a community rugby/rugby league combination version of the game his namesake has left him rather large boots to fill.
“Damien named Sahara, so when we had [our second child] I got to choose his name, and I wanted Carter, after Dan Carter.
“My husband was like, ‘No, I’m not naming my child after an All Black’, so I started throwing out random names like Tennessee and Memphis, so he’d think Carter was a great name.”
A Barrett brothers fan, she’s got another name in mind should a new baby come into their lives.
“I’d love to have a third child and call it Jordie.”
Sahara Hart, now 6, dressed by mum Anna Byrne in her miniature All Blacks jersey.
And Sahara Hart dressed by dad in a Wallabies' jersey.
Her husband had launched a counteroffensive to bring his kids back to their green and gold birthright, but has failed so far, Byrne said.
“He tries to buy them Wallabies shirts and stuff, and put them in that. And he’s always telling me, ‘Anna, you were born in Australia’. We’ll go to the pub with friends … I’ll be the only one in black, and they’ll be like, ‘You were born on the Gold Coast - choose the right country’.
The All Blacks, and their fans, will be hoping the side can again lift the Webb Ellis trophy at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, as Dan Carter, left, Conrad Smith and their teammates did in London in 2015. Photo / Andrew Cornaga / Photosport.nz
“They’re not the most cohesive team at the moment. Because of that, I think they’re going to struggle.
“I don’t think they’ll make it much further than the pool stage. But I’d love to be wrong.”
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.
