When Grace Brooker left New Zealand for Australia after the 2025 Super Rugby Aupiki season, she hadn’t intended on being back so soon.
But as she prepares to lead Matatū in another campaign, with the new season beginning on June 13, the 26-year-old midfielder admits the last couple of years have been a bit of a wild ride.
Brooker returns to the South Island’s lone Aupiki team after a season in the AFL Women’s (AFLW) with the Essendon Bombers in Melbourne, her first foray into the world of Aussie Rules.
“I honestly got to the end of the season and with AFLW, you kind of go into a meeting and it’s like yes or no for next year. I had to decide before that meeting because they needed my okay for Matatū,” Brooker tells the Herald.
“I was fighting a lot of thoughts. Definitely, if you took all emotion out of it, [it] would have been smarter to stay over in AFLW, you know, if I wanted to make a bit more money and potentially stay in the sport a bit longer.
“But, in the end, I didn’t think I could give my 100% to Essendon while Matatū was being played. My heart lives with this team and I dream of playing for them as long as possible. I just didn’t think I could put my best foot forward while Matatū was being played.”
Brooker’s move into the AFLW was one that began in 2024 after she lost her Black Ferns contract.
After returning in 2023 from a ruptured patella tendon suffered while playing for the Black Ferns in late 2021, she admits she hadn’t had the best season individually in 2024, noting her speed and strength had taken a hit after the injury. Still, missing out on a contract with the national team did come as a surprise for the five-test midfielder who last featured for the Black Ferns in a 39-17 win over the United States in 2023.
Not ready to give up on life as a professional athlete, Brooker got in contact with the AFLW and sent through some highlights and a bit about herself. Brooker got some phone calls and emails back, but one of the first calls she took was from Essendon coach Natalie Wood.
Wood was full of advice for the Kiwi on the AFLW process and how to get into a team.
The two kept in contact for the rest of 2024, including while Brooker was playing rugby in Japan, with Wood often sending Brooker videos about the game and how to play it. Returning from Japan in early 2025, Brooker had a week with Matatū for pre-season camp before flying to Melbourne and being offered the final spot in Essendon’s 30-strong AFLW roster, becoming the team’s first-ever rookie signing.
“I played the Matatū season and went to the airport two weeks later, and my Dad said he’s never seen me so nervous and I realised that I hadn’t been that player that was brand new. I just didn’t want to let them down. I didn’t want to, you know, drag the chain,” Brooker recalls.
“I got there and everyone was just amazing. Everyone took me under their wings and taught me how to play the game. They were there for any questions, more than gracious with feedback.”
Her introduction to the game was an eye-opening one.
On the field, having never been the least fit player in a team, Brooker says she was “chasing everyone” when she arrived at the team for the pre-season. Off the field, she was able to enjoy Essendon’s massive facility, called The Hanger, which included an indoor field, basketball courts, 25m swimming pool and a private gym, while the women had their own sauna, ice bath, physio room and massive changing room.
“It was pretty luxurious and I definitely didn’t take it for granted. I was overwhelmed every day I walked in there,” she says.
“Then coming back, they’ve done an amazing job at Lincoln to have our own facility, which is pretty unreal to have a place that you can just walk in and call your own. It’s a different beast, but you know, you’ve got to accept what we can produce and what they have produced at Lincoln is incredible for what we have.”
She made her AFLW debut in round six away against Fremantle, with her parents able to make the last-minute trip to Perth and watch her debut, and ultimately featured in five of the Bombers’ 12 games in the 2025 season.
Returning to Super Rugby Aupiki, Brooker brings with her some newly acquired or more developed skills, from fitness to kicking and contesting the ball in the air.
“Also with AFL, there’s a range of mistakes that you can make that are, like, an okay mistake to a really bad mistake,” she explains.
“I think being able to just brush mistakes off, I had to learn that very fast because obviously I was very new and made a lot of mistakes. So yeah, how to manage that and move on and just keep staying in the flow of things was a big learning.”
Brooker returns to lead a new-look Matatū team, which includes a host of new additions, including Paris Lokotui, who makes the move to rugby after helping netball’s Mainland Tactix win their first ANZ Premiership in 2025.
And while they lost head coach Whitney Hansen as she took the reins with the Black Ferns, a familiar face has taken the helm at Matatū, with former head coach Blair Baxter returning to the role.
“Blair and Whitney are very similar in the way they coach,” Brooker says.
“B.B. [Baxter] is just the most caring guy. He takes so much pride in his players and wants to know them as people first and really cares about everyone. He won’t muck around. Like, he knows what you can do and he’ll demand that you perform, but he’ll be the first one to give you a hand up if you don’t quite meet that performance.
“I’m super excited to be led by B.B. this year. He’s got a cool, awesome group around him as well. They’re a little bit, not a whole heap of experience, but again, amazing people and they drive each other to be better and they work incredibly hard to put the best product out there for us.”
Named as Matatū captain for the upcoming season, Brooker sees her return home as a permanent one.
But that’s not to say things can’t change in the unpredictable world of professional sport.
“You never know what’s going to be around the corner. Who knows, I might end up doing something outrageous, playing water polo or something like that,” she laughs.
“But at this stage, rugby’s in my heart, so that’s where I’m going to be.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.