Suzanne McFadden for LockerRoom
Rugby has long shaped Erin Rush’s world.
Take a typical day last week – just before she became New Zealand Rugby’s first female president in its 134-year history.
Between appointments as one of Wellington’s leading real estate agents, the former Black Fern met with the French Ambassador to set up an alumni network for New Zealanders who’ve played or coached rugby in France.
She then tried to source desperately needed rugby boots for a local high school’s first XV.
Rush even called her son, Stanley Solomon, to ask if he and his Highlanders teammates in Dunedin could donate any of their old boots to help the kids out.
Then, in the evening, she held an open home in Hataitai.
A long-time Wellington Pride captain, who made her Black Ferns debut as a 33-year-old mum, Rush has always made it her focus to support both women’s and grassroots rugby.
And in this job, the now 56-year-old pledges, it will be no different.
You’ll find her volunteering at kids’ rugby on Saturday mornings and on the sideline watching one of her old clubs, the Wellington Football Club, field their first women’s side in 23 years.
“I’ve got all these connections to actual rugby on the field, not just governance. I’m there on the sidelines listening to all the mums and dads at ripper rugby, and I can bring those very real experiences to the board table,” says Rush, confident she can have an influence on the direction the game is heading.
A gutsy loose forward in her day, Rush has always busted through glass ceilings.
She was the first female vice-president elected in 2024, the first female citing commissioner for New Zealand Rugby, and the first female president of the Centurions Club.
Wellington’s best and fairest female player of the year award is named in her honour.
In 1998, Rush commentated the first Black Ferns test to be broadcast on live TV – the World Cup final in Amsterdam – from the Avalon studio in Lower Hutt alongside the late Sue Garden-Bachop, Keith Quinn and John McBeth.
Rush was voted in for a two-year tenure as the national president at the NZR annual general meeting last Thursday.
“It’s clearly been a long time coming, and not before time. We’re not the first country though – England, Australia and Ghana have had women presidents,” she says.
“But it’s an awesome reflection of our player base here now; the rise and rise of women and girls in New Zealand rugby. I’m just stoked and honoured – and a little bit nervous.”
She will be in office when the first British & Irish Lions Women tour is played in New Zealand next year – a world away from 2003, the year Rush became Black Fern No.113.
“The Black Ferns are playing 11 tests this year, but the year I made the team, there wasn’t a single test match. They had no resources,” recalls Rush, who’d had daughter, Winnie, by then.
“At the last minute, they cobbled together a World XV for us to play against.”
There were other challenges in her playing career – captaining the Wellington Pride team for a decade, Rush would look for people to mind her two kids while she trained.
“Or they’d be sitting in their pushchairs in the freezing cold on the sideline – and I wasn’t the only mum doing that,” she laughs.
“I took Winnie with me to Rotorua once when I was still breastfeeding, but I couldn’t do it again because I just couldn’t focus on being with the team.”
After that, she expressed her milk while away with the team and popped it into the physio’s chilly bag.
The kids have done okay. Winnie is now a fashion designer, with her own label, Winnie Catherine.
Stanley, a former New Zealand schools and U20s player, is a speedy, versatile back who plays for Wellington in the NPC and is waiting in the wings to make his Super Rugby Pacific debut for the Highlanders this season.
As president, Rush will attend NZR board meetings, but she won’t vote.
She will travel with national teams to tests and competitions offshore, represent New Zealand at formal occasions, present trophies and medals, and welcome international visitors.
The role mirrors the work she did as vice-president.
“Every day for the last two years I was doing something for New Zealand Rugby – from attending tangi and funerals, to handing out 100 Super Rugby taonga to players, to being with the Black Ferns in their training camp,” she says.
“I was visiting the clubs and provinces, hearing what was happening at community rugby level.”
She also shadowed her predecessor, former All Black Matthew Cooper.
“He’s an incredible human and a great leader, and I have huge shoes to fill,” she says. “He showed me how to do it, but I guess I’ll also do it in my own way.”
The new role means a greater time commitment to the sport, and juggling that with her real estate career.
“I’ll just have to learn to say ‘no’ more often,” she says.
“I’m really mindful as a self-employed contractor, with three people working for me, that if I don’t sell houses, I’m not getting paid.
“But we’re all open-eyed about the next couple of years, understanding this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we’ll get through it.”
Rush’s husband, Nigel ‘Solly’ Solomon, works with her in real estate; he’s also coached the Wellington Pride women and the Cook Islands men.
“He’s a real rugby head, so we’re very much on the same page,” she says. “I’m lucky to have a very supportive team around me.”
Rush has been gobsmacked by the “vastness” of the business of rugby in New Zealand. “It’s something as a player, a local administrator and a volunteer I had no idea of,” she says.
“New Zealand Rugby is in a lot of places, doing a lot of good things, and you don’t see it all. There’s a genuine, heartfelt, passionate desire to do great stuff … trying to make it inclusive and a game for all.”
Rush believes she can help shape rugby’s future over the next two years, especially the women’s and community games.
“If I’m asked my opinion, I will freely give it. I can champion our concerns and our causes, and take them to the people who make decisions,” she says.
“At a board meeting last month, I told them our club was trying to find coaches and get parents to coach. And people in the room said, ‘Okay we’ll take this a step further and maybe build some resources for them’.”
With her bold fashion sense, Rush also hopes women and girls will see her and want to be her.
“I hope they’ll wonder why that lady is out in the middle of the field handing out trophies: ‘Who is she, how did she get there, could that be me?’,” she says.
“I’m always telling female players after they’ve finished playing, they don’t have to leave rugby. There are such vast opportunities in voluntary and paid employment to keep women involved.”
As a player, volunteer and now with an insight into how rugby is run, Rush has witnessed the rise of the women’s game, especially over the past five years, and the new pathways emerging.
“There’s so much more acceptance in our clubs, which have always been so male-dominated, so board-dominated. You can always do more, right? But it’s noticeably better,” she says.
“We now have enough teams to have a girls-only grade in Wellington who play on Friday nights. It means if they want to still play netball with their other mates on Saturdays, they can do both. I love that.
“Once, you only played club, rep games and Black Ferns. Now there are the Black Ferns XVs, Aupiki, U20s, U18s.
“In coaching, there’s the Ako Wāhine programme – which also offers free child-minding. Maggie Cogger-Orr is coaching women’s referees, and there’s a programme to support women to govern the game.”
Back when she was nominated to be vice-president by the Central Zone, Rush had no idea the role existed.
Her husband took out one of his New Zealand Rugby Almanacs, opened it to the front page, and showed her the list of office bearers.
“And he said, ‘Your name’s going to be in here’,” she says.
“It really reinforced with me just how important and distinguished the role is.”
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.