Braxton Sorensen-McGee is being touted as a future star of women’s rugby. Photo / Photosport
At 18, Braxton Sorensen-McGee already has the sports world taking notice – and she’s aiming to wear the silver fern in three codes, she tells Suzanne McFadden.
At only 2 years old, Braxton Sorensen-McGee would run on to the field during her big brother’s league trainings and jump straight into the action.
Now 18, the Blues fullback fearlessly takes on the world’s best rugby players – whether stopping them in their tracks or out-sprinting them to the tryline in Super Rugby Aupiki.
Hailing from one of New Zealand’s great league dynasties, Sorensen-McGee is being touted as a future star of women’s rugby.
But she’s determined to excel in three sporting codes – aiming to play for the Black Ferns, the Black Ferns Sevens and the Kiwi Ferns.
“I want to be able to play all three – first with sevens, then 15s and then on to league,” the confident, talented teen says.
Her growing band of followers believe she’s capable of achieving the rare triple. Former English rugby captain Paula George, who helps support Sorensen-McGee through the Tania Dalton Foundation scholarship programme, loves watching her fluid, intelligent play. “She’s a superstar in the making,” George said.
In her first year out of high school, Sorensen-McGee (Ngāti Wai) lives at home with her dog, Thunder, and mum Nicole, who facilitates her daughter’s busy schedule.
In December, Sorensen-McGee co-captained the New Zealand U18 sevens side at the Global Youth Cup played in Auckland where they finished third, losing to champions Japan in their semifinal.
After playing for the Auckland Storm in the Farah Palmer Cup for two seasons while still at Auckland Girls’ Grammar, Sorensen-McGee was chosen to play for the defending champion Blues side this season, where she’s made herself at home in a star-studded backline.
League, the code she’s played since she was a little kid, has also come calling; she turned down a development contract with the Warriors women because “at my age, I just want to play”, she says.
“I want to go back to league eventually. But it couldn’t offer me as much as rugby did. The [rugby] players were really nice to me, really welcoming, so I chose to go down the rugby path instead for now.”
Her mum is a Sorensen – a whānau with a proud history in New Zealand rugby league. Five family members have played for the Kiwis, including past NRL stars Dane and Kurt Sorensen, and most recently, Braxton’s second cousin Scott, who plays for the Penrith Panthers.
Her brother, Dredin Sorensen-McGee, is also a promising league player whose career has taken him to France and Australia, but is recovering from surgery after fracturing two vertebrae in his neck.
But she doesn’t feel the pressure to carry on the family name and wants to play league on her terms.
“I’m not personally close to those players; they’re closer to my mum than me,” she says. “It would be cool to play league – I have a real passion for it – but I want to do it for me, the way I like to play,” she says.
League was her first love, going to the Howick Hornets club grounds as a toddler, where her mum managed Dredin’s team. “I’d sit at trainings and always jump in when I could,” Sorensen-McGee says.
She was the only girl when she finally got to play for the Hornets under-7s, and it remained that way right through the age grades.
“Even though they were boys, I wasn’t afraid to play my part. I would get ‘tackle of the match’ or ‘player of the match’ and it became a consistent thing,” she says.
She gave football a go at school because her mum had played as a goalkeeper. “I played at intermediate, but my uncles were like, ‘No you can’t play that’,” she says. “But Mum always supports me, whatever I play.”
Sorensen-McGee’s league career burgeoned, playing for the national secondary schools side, Fetu Samoa U16s, Auckland Vulcans U18s and Counties Manukau Stingrays. In 2022, she was New Zealand Rugby League’s U16 player of the year.
It wasn’t until high school that Sorensen-McGee picked up a rugby ball and was immediately a leader in the Auckland Girls 1st XV. In Year 12, the 16-year-old was selected for the Auckland Storm squad – surrounded by Black Ferns, she became the starting fullback in the side who won the 2023 Farah Palmer Cup. She was named rookie of the year.
Then last month, she scored a try in her Blues debut against Hurricanes Poua and was named fans’ player of the match. As the Blues head into their final round against the Poua again this weekend, already cementing their place in next week’s final against Matatū, Sorensen-McGee has the impressive Aupiki statistics of 349 minutes played, 295m carried and three tries.
She’s continuing to learn from Blues and Black Ferns stalwarts, like No 8 Liana Mikaele-Tu’u and fellow back Ruahei Demant (aka Lou).
“Lou’s knowledge around the game is pretty incredible. She has a really good way of wording things to help our team understand,” she says.
Then there’s her wing, Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, who at 33 is almost twice Sorensen-McGee’s age, but made her Blues debut on the same day. “She’s so cool and funny as. You always know where she is on the field because she does really loud burps,” Sorensen-McGee says.
She’s most comfortable playing at fullback, but has experience at first five. “At school, I was moved to 10 because I was one of the oldest in my team and I had to take charge,” she says. “But fullback is where I see myself in 15s.
“I just enjoy the space that I get – our team creates a lot of space – and it’s the running I enjoy. I really like playing sevens where there’s obviously heaps of space. So fullback is like playing sevens because there’s heaps of space on the edges.”
Sorensen-McGee is quickly becoming renowned for her ability to read play and accelerate through a gap – as seen in the Blues’ latest game against the Chiefs when she dashed 60m to the tryline, her left boot somehow hovering above the sideline as she escaped the clutches of Manawa fullback Tenika Willison to score in the corner.
It’s only recently she started to realise her speed, which she reckons is a result of playing sevens.
Sorensen-McGee is “a joy to watch” on the field, says Paula George, who was an outstanding fullback for England’s Red Roses at four Rugby World Cups.
“It’s like there’s a force field around her and she can slow down time. She looks like she’s in pure flow,” George says. “She’s always able to create something when she has the ball; whatever decision she makes appears to be the right one.
“At 18, you think she’s still quite slight, but next thing she’s smashing someone in a tackle. When she strikes a ball, she’s clean and technical. I can’t wait to see her develop over the years.”
George is also the scholarship manager for the Tania Dalton Foundation (TDF), helping support young female athletes, and Sorensen-McGee is almost halfway through a three-year scholarship. Black Ferns World Cup winners Amy Rule, Renee Holmes and Sylvia Brunt are among the scholar alumni.
“The TDF scholarship has provided financial support for Braxton, helping her family with the high costs that come with having a talented young woman who’s so good at multiple sports,” George says. “It also gives her a network of peers across other sports – hopefully, connections that will last her a lifetime.”
Sorensen-McGee acknowledges the foundation has been “really good” to her, forging relationships with athletes from other sports, including tennis, netball, basketball and triathlon. “And the scholarship teaches us a lot to do with sport and our personal lives, especially for later in life, like saving money and teamwork,” she says.
Although she says she has “enough on my plate right now”, she’s always thought about a future teaching young kids.
Sorensen-McGee says she and her mum spend a lot of time weighing up her options.
“I had an offer from the Warriors, but I turned it down because they were offering me a developing contract, which is great for my age,” she says. “But I wouldn’t be able to play FPC, and at my age I just want to play.”
She sees herself playing in the NRLW in the future and at a Rugby World Cup with the Black Ferns. Some are even picking her as a possible bolter for this year’s World Cup in England.
“It’s obviously a big dream of mine. And if I get picked this year, I’ll be stoked and take it with open arms,” she says. “And if I don’t get picked, there’s still an opportunity for me to try out for the LA Olympics in sevens.”
She’d like to keep her hand in with league, last playing at the annual Wāhine Tuakana women’s senior tournament with the Kotahitanga team last year. “If I was allowed to, I would,” she says.
But as she admits, she’s already got quite a bit on her plate, especially for an 18-year-old with a lofty vision.
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.
The Pumas held on for a 28-24 win in Dublin.