Chryss Viliko: the airport phone call that made a Māngere East prop a Black Fern

Chryss Viliko found out she was a Black Fern while dragging a suitcase through Christchurch airport. Auckland had just won the 2023 Farah Palmer Cup final, her phone rang with a number she did not recognise, and on the other end was Black Ferns assistant coach Steve Jackson. "I was sweating in my boots," she told the NZ Rugby Museum's Adam Julian. Three years on, the loosehead prop from Māngere East has 29 Tests, a World Cup bronze medal and three Super Rugby Aupiki titles with the Blues, and she has started all three of those finals.

Māngere East and her father's team

Chryss Zhonn Fakahoa Viliko was born on Christmas Day 2000 in Ōtāhuhu and grew up in Māngere East, the youngest of six children by 15 years. It was a full house, and by her telling a close one: even with more room, she says, "we still wanted to be together."

Rugby came through school, and through her father. She went to Onehunga High School and has said she only started taking the game seriously because her dad was the coach. The school says the same: her rugby journey began there, under his guidance. Onehunga were "a good team", in her words, but kept losing the final to Southern Cross, whose players she remembers as "huge".

She did not start in the front row. Viliko began as a centre, was moved to No.8, and only later settled at prop. She played First XV rugby at Onehunga, left at the end of 2018 as part of the Year 13 class, and won the school's Nieukerke Memorial Scholarship on the way out.

Marist, and a knee that was not right

From school she went straight to Marist in Auckland, where she has played all her club rugby since. It was there that senior coach JP Faamausili, who had led the club to Coleman Shield titles in 2017 and 2019, saw what she could be as a prop. "JP spoke to my Dad and said I had a shot at rugby," she recalled. She was part of the Marist side that won the Auckland club championship in 2022, and the club counts her as its 35th Black Fern.

There was a problem she did not know about. Viliko has said she had no idea she had done her anterior cruciate ligament until she joined the Auckland squad, when the team physio examined the knee properly and found it was very loose. She kept playing on it for about a year, then did it again. An ACL reconstruction cost her most of the 2021 Farah Palmer Cup, and when the Blues named her in their first Aupiki squad that November, she had to wait until the following season to make her debut.

Auckland Storm

Viliko first played for the Auckland Storm in 2019. It was a big step up from club rugby: "The intensity and standards are way higher," she said. She packed down with experienced props such as Aldora Itunu and Alissa Pearl-Nelson, and she has a nickname for Itunu: "I call her Beyonce."

Auckland lost two finals to Canterbury in her early years, 30-20 in 2019 and 41-14 in 2022. In 2023 the Storm went to Rugby Park in Christchurch and beat the defending champions 39-27 on 9 September, Auckland's first Premiership title since 2015 and their 16th in all. The NZ Rugby Museum profile records that Viliko got the better of Pip Love, the World Cup-winning Canterbury tighthead, in that final. She was named Storm Player of the Year, and by the time the museum profile was written she had played 30 games for Auckland, 20 of them wins.

Blues

Viliko is Blues player No.39. Her debut came in 2022 against Chiefs Manawa, and by 2024 she was the starting loosehead in a side that won six of its seven games and its first Aupiki title. She carried the ball 69 times that season, the most by any prop in the competition according to NZR, and scored a try in the 41-29 win over Hurricanes Poua at Levin Domain.

In the 2024 final at Eden Park on 13 April the Blues trailed Chiefs Manawa 5-18, and Viliko stayed on for all 80 minutes as they came back to win 24-18, with two Blues scrum penalties in the last quarter of an hour helping to turn the match. The Blues' own profile credits her scrummaging with laying "a solid platform" for that championship side.

A year later, on 12 April 2025, Matatū led the Grand Final 12-0 at Eden Park before Ruahei Demant's try got the Blues going. In the 26th minute Viliko drove over herself, and Krysten Cottrell's conversion gave the Blues a 14-12 lead, their first of the night. They won 26-19 and became the first side to defend the Aupiki title. Five days later she started the first trans-Tasman Champions Final, a 36-5 win over the NSW Waratahs at North Harbour Stadium.

In 2026 the competition moved to the middle of the year. Viliko started the Grand Final at One NZ Stadium in Christchurch on 25 July, playing until the 77th minute as the Blues beat Matatū 28-21 in front of 10,067. A week later, at Leichhardt Oval in Sydney, she scored the Blues' first try in a 24-17 win over the Waratahs. Three Aupiki finals, three starts, three titles.

The call, and a hard second Test

The Black Ferns had been watching for a while. Viliko went to a Black Ferns high performance camp in October 2021 and played at the national trial in Pukekohe in July 2022. In April 2023 she was brought into the squad for four months as injury cover for Awhina Tangen-Wainohu. Black Ferns director of rugby Allan Bunting called it "a great experience for her". She did not play in the Pacific Four Series that winter, but her Farah Palmer Cup season did the rest, and then came the call at the airport.

Her debut was off the bench against Australia at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton on 30 September 2023. She played 32 minutes of a 43-3 win in the O'Reilly Cup. "My debut against Aussie was magical," she said.

Three weeks later the Black Ferns opened the WXV1 series against France at Sky Stadium in Wellington. Viliko came on and won a scrum penalty against Clara Joyeux, a tighthead with 40 more Tests behind her, and she credits Krystal Murray for briefing her on how the French front row worked. Then, with 18 minutes left, she was sent off for dangerous charging into a ruck. France held on to win 18-17, ending a 16-match winning run. Viliko has been frank about it: she told Julian she had cleared a player who was not in the ruck, knew straight away, and saw her own face on the big screen as she walked off. "In the moment it was dreadful," she said. Her parents and team-mates rallied round.

The judiciary gave her three matches, reduced to two once she completed World Rugby's Coaching Intervention Programme, taking account of her admission, her clean record, her apology to the French player and her good character. She missed the win over Wales in Dunedin and the loss to England in Auckland.

The starting loosehead

In 2024 she came off the bench against the USA in Hamilton, and when Kate Henwood was injured she was handed her first Test start, against Canada in Christchurch on 19 May. "It's everyone's dream, and it's been mine," she said that week. Canada won 22-19, but six days later Viliko scored her first Test try in a 67-19 win over Australia at North Harbour Stadium. She started against Australia in Brisbane, against England at Twickenham and again against England in Langley during the WXV1 series in Canada.

In 2025 she started all three Tests she played before the World Cup, scoring in the 38-12 win over Australia in Newcastle and featuring in the 27-27 draw with Canada in Christchurch. Bunting named her as one of three loosehead props for her first World Cup, in England, with 13 Tests behind her. She came off the bench in the opening 54-8 win over Spain in York and started the other five matches: Japan in Exeter, Ireland in Brighton, where she scored in a 40-0 win, the 46-17 quarter-final against South Africa in Exeter, the 19-34 semi-final loss to Canada in Bristol and the 42-26 bronze final win over France at Twickenham.

Under new head coach Whitney Hansen in 2026 she started every Test she played, ten of the record eleven, missing only Edinburgh. She scored against Australia in the 66-19 win at Go Media Stadium in Auckland in August, and again in Johannesburg on 5 September, when the Black Ferns won their first Test on South African soil 52-20 against a Springbok side that NZR said challenged them at scrum and maul. She started the win in Lyon, the 19-26 loss at Twickenham and all three home Tests against France: 81-12 in Hamilton, 31-12 in Whangārei in the Black Ferns' 150th Test, and 36-7 in Christchurch on 31 October.

That made 29 Tests, 23 of them as the starting No.1, with five tries and 25 points.

Standing

The NZ Rugby Museum profile calls her "a sturdy and bustling prop". Among her admirers is Census Johnston, the former Manu Samoa prop with 60 Tests, who has mentored her. "She has a good attitude and a big engine," Johnston said in 2024, adding: "She can play 80 minutes." Onehunga High School, for its part, holds her up to its current students as an example of talent, resilience and commitment.

What is next

Viliko turns 26 on Christmas Day. The Black Ferns open 2027 with an O'Reilly Cup Test against the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day, after the first Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Test, and in September they host the first British and Irish Lions Women's tour, with Tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The 2029 World Cup follows in Australia.

Career at a glance

Test figures are New Zealand Rugby's. NZR also lists one non-Test match, against a New Zealand Women XV in Upper Hutt in August 2026. Some club records date her first Auckland squad to 2018; Viliko and NZR give 2019 as her first season.