Where is she now? Trish Hina, GOAT

2026-02-15 - 16:09

Trish Hina is arguably New Zealand’s greatest ever sportswoman. It’s a big call in a crowded field, but when you look at her long list of achievements, it’s a claim that stands up against the very best Aotearoa has ever produced. Hina, now 48, won three rugby league World Cups in 2000, 2003 & 2008, and was part of the victorious Black Ferns 2010 World Cup squad. When they won that tournament, she became the first woman to win league and union World Cups. Oh, and she also represented her country in softball and touch for good measure. It’s a sporting journey that started in Wellington. Hina was the youngest of four siblings, alongside one sister and two brother. She would train and play all sorts of sports with them and traditional Kiwi Saturday mornings meant sport for them all. In the afternoon, they would watch their father play while they hung out with their friends at the clubrooms at Wainuiomata rugby club in Lower Hutt. “My Dad played a lot of sport, and I used to go to all his trainings when I was a kid. It started from there really. I got good whanau support from my mum and dad, all the important things that shaped my life,” Hina says. Hina played rugby in the boys’ grade until she was 13, but when she started at Naenae College, the game had to take a back seat as there were no opportunities for girls to play. When it came to her summer sports of softball and touch however, Hina was making serious progress. In 1991, she helped Naenae College win the 1991 National Secondary Schools’ competition and earned selection for the New Zealand Māori, U19, and senior White Sox teams. She was a key member of the Hutt Valley side that won three national provincial titles between 1998 and 2000 and in 2006, she led Wainuiomata to the national club title. In 1993 she was selected for the New Zealand Secondary Schools’ touch team that toured Australia. That year also saw her return to rugby, playing in the women’s grade for Wainuiomata. At the same time, the New Zealand Rugby League established competitions for women that took place on a Sunday, which meant that suddenly Hina could compete in both codes at the weekend. In 1997 Hina made an immediate impression on international rugby league, with two tries on her test debut against Australia and a hat-trick in their next encounter. Hina would go on to establish herself as an elite stand-off, widely recognised as the best player in the world. In 2000, she was the MVP at the first women’s rugby league World Cup in England, finishing as the tournament’s leading points scorer and scoring two tries in the final as New Zealand beat Great Britain 26-4. Trish Hina gets a pass away during a match between the Kiwi Ferns and NZ Māori at North Harbour Stadium in 2003. Photo: Getty Images After being a vital member of the team that defended their crown in 2003, Hina left Wellington and moved to the Gold Coast, where she played both union and league. Her new home would host the next edition of the rugby league World Cup in 2008 where New Zealand would make it three in a row, with Hina again earning the tournament’s MVP award, as her side beat Australia 34-0 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. The year after, Hina moved to Auckland to take on a new challenge, as she attempted to make the Black Ferns. She joined Auckland Storm, playing at second-five and centre as they won their third successive National Provincial championship. She was the only uncapped player to be selected for the 2010 World Cup squad in England, playing four of the five matches, including an appearance off the bench in the final, where New Zealand beat the hosts 13-10. But it was after that Black Ferns success, that Hina faced her toughest battle. During the tournament she noticed that her fitness tests weren’t producing the results she expected. After taking blood tests, she was diagnosed with stage four kidney disease, which brought an end to her high-performance career. The diagnosis saw her move to Gisborne to be close to her mother, and she took up a position at Kaiti School as a social worker. Since then, she’s worked at various schools in Gisborne, but in September last year it was time for a change and Hina now works as a bail support officer, supporting and mentoring defendants to help secure safe bail conditions and reduce reoffending. Hina says that her kidney disease has been stable for the last decade and with that in mind, in 2020, ten years after her last game of rugby league, Hina made a comeback in the NZRL National Championship. Encouraged by her great friend and former teammate Honey Hireme-Smiler, the duo played together in the centres for Upper Central Stallions side, who beat the Auckland Vulcans 12-10 in the grand final. “She was my idol. Head and shoulders above everybody in terms of her vision and skillset and with a step like I have never seen a woman have,” said Hireme-Smiler, herself a union and league international, who followed in Hina’s footsteps by winning the MVP award at the 2013 rugby league World Cup Hina is now married to Amoe Tarsau, herself a volunteer, coach and mentor based in Gisborne and they have two sons, aged six and two. Hina and Tarsau have dedicated an enormous amount of time to developing youth rugby in the region, coaching the likes of Black Ferns Kaipo Olsen-Baker and Renee Holmes, as well as Black Ferns Sevens player Kelsey Teneti. In 2022 Hina was inducted to the New Zealand Rugby League Legends of League and she he has the honour of having the MVP medal named after her for the annual Māori All Stars v Indigenous All Stars match, with the most recent fixture having taken place yesterday in Hamilton. “I couldn’t think of anybody more worthy to have the medal named after. I don’t see anybody in the history of rugby league that is more suited for that honour,” said Hireme-Smiler. “She’s an exceptional human being, both on the field and off the field.” Hina herself is very aware of the significance that the honour brings. “Being a part of that kaupapa is amazing because representing our culture is really important to me, says Hina, a proud descendent of Ngāti Porou. As Hina now raises her own children, she’s in a position to look back with a new lens on her sporting upbringing. “When I think back, I reflect how blessed I was to have a sporting career like I did. It all comes down to family values,” she says. “We didn’t even think about the money back then, we just played for the love of the game and the friendships. Most if the girls that played union, played league as well. The most important thing was playing with your friends and progressing alongside them from grassroots up.” “I’m just humble and very grateful.” This year’s Indigenous vs Māori encounter really was a game of two halves, with the Indigenous All Stars coming back from a 14-0 deficit at half-time, to score 20 unanswered second half points in front of a crowd of 12,441 at FMG Stadium Waikato. It was their third successive win against the Māori All Stars, with their winger Krystal Blackwell racking up 121 running metres and scoring her side’s third try on her way to winning this year’s MVP award.