Kennedy Tukuafu: the flanker who turned down Japan and came home to lead the Black Ferns

At the end of 2017 a young flanker from Hamilton was asked to play rugby for Japan. She had spent three seasons in Sapporo on a sevens contract, training through 40-degree summers and minus-15 winters, and the national sevens side wanted her at camp the following week. She said no and came home. Kennedy Tukuafu, who played as Kennedy Simon until 2024, went on to co-captain the Black Ferns to a World Cup on home soil, become the first woman to sign a four-year fifteens contract with New Zealand Rugby, and lead Chiefs Manawa through four Aupiki seasons. This is the story of how she got there, and of the hamstring that stopped her in 2026.

Hamilton

Kennedy Wailer Simon was born in Hamilton on 1 October 1996 and grew up there, one of three children. She is of Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Māhanga descent. By her own account to the NZ Rugby Museum she was a timid teenager, and she gave rugby away in her last year at intermediate school.

Hamilton Girls' High School

A friend talked her into trying out for the Hamilton Girls' High School First XV, and she walked into one of the most dominant programmes the school game has seen. Across 2013 and 2014 the school played 94 matches of sevens and fifteens, won 92 of them, and scored 4,292 points while conceding 208. Hamilton Girls' won the National Top Four First XV title in 2014 and the national Condor Sevens title in both years.

The coach was Crystal Kaua, a flanker who had won a national title with Auckland in 2009 and also played for Waikato. "Crystal taught me everything I know," Simon told the museum. Kaua drove the girls hard, and she also drove Simon to training and handed down her old boots. Years later Kaua would coach Chiefs Manawa, and Simon has spoken of wanting to do for young players what Kaua did for her.

Simon was still at school when she made her provincial debut for Waikato in 2013, against Otago. She played five games for the province that season, four of them at flanker.

Sapporo

Straight out of school she took a contract with the Hokkaido Barbarians in Sapporo, at a time when women's sevens in Japan was in its infancy. The team was paid to train all year round and toured tournaments around the country. "I played everywhere from prop to first receiver," she said, and as she grew more experienced she had more say in how the side was run.

Then came the offer. At the end of 2017 the club's owner asked whether she would play for Japan's national sevens team, the Sakura Sevens. Simon had already attended a handful of their training camps. Her reasoning, as she told the museum, was simple: "if I can crack it here, surely I can in New Zealand." She went home.

Waikato

She went straight back into the Waikato side and played every game of its 2018 Farah Palmer Cup campaign, starting all seven at blindside or openside flanker. Waikato reached the semi-finals, beating Auckland 45-14 on the way, a record result against their northern neighbours.

In 2020 she was used mostly at No 8, and Waikato topped the Northern section with six wins. The final against Canterbury was lost 8-7 on the last play of the game, with Simon scoring Waikato's only try. Former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith called it "one of the most exciting" matches he had seen. "I don't think I'll ever get over it," Simon said.

That December her peers voted her both the international women's player of the year and the Farah Palmer Cup player of the year at the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association awards. For the first she finished ahead of Kendra Cocksedge, Pip Love, Charmaine McMenamin and Aroha Savage; for the second, ahead of Alana Bremner, Stacey Fluhler, Hazel Tubic and Portia Woodman.

Waikato won the Farah Palmer Cup in 2021, beating Canterbury 22-20 in the final. Simon played four games in that campaign but not the final. She co-captained the province in 2022 and 2023 and finished with 37 games and 35 points for Waikato.

The black jersey

In February 2019 she went back to Japan, this time as part of a Black Ferns Sevens Development team picked to play the Japanese national sevens sides. Waikato won only once that year, but Simon's form earned her a place in the Black Ferns squad for the Super Series in San Diego. On 2 July 2019 she came off the bench in a 33-0 win over the USA to become Black Fern number 210. "I got nine minutes at the end," she recalled, admitting she spent them "running around like a headless chicken". Her second Test was a 16-25 loss to France, which she described as "rare and painful for the senior girls". That August she played both Tests of the O'Reilly Cup series against Australia, a 47-10 win in Perth and a 37-8 win at Eden Park in front of her family.

There were no Tests in 2020, but she played in both of the Black Ferns' wins over the New Zealand Barbarians in the Downer Women's Series that November. The 2021 tour of England and France was a hard one: four Tests, four defeats. Simon came off the bench in the first three and earned her first start in the fourth, against France in Castres, where she scored the Black Ferns' only try in a 7-29 loss. Joseph Pearson of Stuff rated her "the pick of a well-beaten forward pack". At the end of that year New Zealand Rugby named her Black Ferns Player of the Year.

Co-captain

A knee injury suffered in training kept her out of the Pacific Four Series in June 2022, which Ruahei Demant captained. When Simon returned for the O'Reilly Cup in August, she returned as co-captain, at Demant's own request. On 20 August 2022 the two led the Black Ferns out together for the first time, against Australia in Christchurch, and won 52-5. A week later they won 22-14 in Adelaide.

Injury struck again before the World Cup, and Simon missed the first three weeks of the tournament. When she was fit for the quarter-final against Wales in Whangārei, Demant asked her to lead the team onto the field. "She never forgot about me," Simon told the New Zealand Herald. "No matter how well she went." The Black Ferns won 55-3.

Simon came off the bench in all three knockout matches. In the semi-final France were beaten 25-24 at Eden Park. In the final against England on 12 November 2022, before a then world-record crowd for a women's Test, she was shown a yellow card in the 64th minute for a tackle on Abby Dow. With Simon still off the field, Ayesha Leti-I'iga scored the try that won the final 34-31. In the 2023 King's Birthday and Coronation Honours, both co-captains were made Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rugby.

Chiefs Manawa

Simon was in the Chiefs side that played the first women's Super Rugby match in New Zealand, against the Blues at Eden Park on 1 May 2021, starting at No 8 in a 39-12 win. When Super Rugby Aupiki began the following year she scored a try in its very first match, a 17-15 win over Matatū at FMG Stadium Waikato on 10 March 2022. Chiefs Manawa went through that first season unbeaten and finished with a 35-0 win over the Blues to become the inaugural champions, with Les Elder as captain.

Simon took over the captaincy in 2023. Chiefs Manawa won every regular-season match, beat Hurricanes Poua 43-21 in the semi-final and then lost the final 33-31 to Matatū in Hamilton, their first defeat in the competition. In 2024 they were back in the final and lost again, 24-18 to the Blues at Eden Park.

In March 2025 she became the first player to reach 20 games for one club in Super Rugby Aupiki, by the Chiefs' count, having played in every Aupiki match Manawa had played as well as that first game at Eden Park.

A contract to 2028

In July 2024 Simon became the first female fifteens player to sign a four-year contract with New Zealand Rugby, committing to 2028. It was the longest deal in the women's fifteens game since professional contracts began in 2018. "I never thought it would be a thing in my time," she told Suzanne McFadden of Newsroom. Her goal, she said, was to "leave the jersey, the team and the leadership space in a better place".

She had put a teaching degree on hold to play rugby and has said she would be a teacher now if full-time rugby had not become possible. "Now little girls can aspire to be a fulltime rugby player," she said. She named Richie McCaw and Kieran Read among the mentors helping her learn the captain's job.

The hard Tests

There were defeats too. In the first WXV, in 2023, the Black Ferns lost 17-18 to France in Wellington and 12-33 to England at Mount Smart Stadium, where Simon scored the first of their two tries. In May 2024 Canada beat them 22-19 in Christchurch. A week later Simon scored twice in a 67-19 win over Australia at North Harbour Stadium, her most productive Test.

An ankle injury in the last 30 seconds of the Black Ferns' trial match in June 2024 kept her out of the 62-0 win in Brisbane. She returned to lead the side alone at Twickenham in September, the Black Ferns' first Test there, a 12-24 loss to England, then co-captained in WXV in Canada, where they lost to Ireland and England before beating France 39-14 in Vancouver.

In 2025 she co-captained the side to a 38-12 win in Newcastle and a 27-27 draw with Canada in Christchurch, before a knee injury cost her the July Tests. She was still named co-captain for the World Cup in England. Alana Bremner and Demant led the side for the pool match against Japan in Exeter so that Simon, playing under her married name Tukuafu, could concentrate on her return, and she marked it with a try in a 62-19 win. She came off the bench against Ireland and in the 46-17 quarter-final win over South Africa, then started at openside in the semi-final in Bristol when Jorja Miller was injured. Canada won 34-19, and the Black Ferns took bronze a week later.

A hundredth match

The 2026 season, Whitney Hansen's first as head coach, began well for her. Tukuafu co-captained the Black Ferns to three Pacific Four wins in April: 48-15 over the USA in Sacramento, 36-14 over Canada in Kansas City, where she scored a try and New Zealand Rugby singled out her defence as the Black Ferns came from 14-5 down, and 40-5 over Australia on the Sunshine Coast on Anzac Day. The title and the O'Reilly Cup were retained.

Back with Chiefs Manawa, again as captain, she played her 100th first-class match against Hurricanes Poua on 27 June in the Aupiki All In round, and drove over from a lineout maul in the ninth minute. She left the field injured, and Poua went on to win 34-29, their first Aupiki win in more than two years. A specialist confirmed a hamstring tear that needed surgery, ruling her out of the entire 2026 Test season.

"Kennedy leads with authenticity and care," Hansen said. Tukuafu said her focus was on "doing everything I can to return to the game." The Black Ferns went on to win ten of a record 11 Tests that year without her.

Style and standing

Tukuafu can play all three loose forward positions and has worn 6, 7 and 8 for Waikato and the Black Ferns, with most of her Test starts at openside. Allan Bunting, the Black Ferns' director of rugby when she signed her long contract, called her "an inspirational leader, with her 'follow me' style of leadership," and said she has "a ruthless mindset when she steps over the white line."

Her record as a leader is written in the match lists. By RUGBE's count from the Test records she has captained or co-captained the Black Ferns in 20 Tests, 18 of them alongside Demant, with 12 wins, seven losses and a draw. Her honours include the 2020 players' double, the 2021 Black Ferns Player of the Year award, a World Cup winner's medal, a bronze medal from 2025 and the MNZM.

She has also spoken about what the Black Ferns stand for beyond results: "Our culture, our waiata, our community service," she told Newsroom, and the women who came before. "It's an amazing time to be playing rugby," she said in 2023.

What is next

New Zealand Rugby put her recovery at six months from early July 2026. Her contract runs to 2028. The Black Ferns meet the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day 2027, then host the British and Irish Lions Women on their first tour, with Tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in September 2027. Tukuafu has said she is still closely involved with the team while she works her way back.

Career at a glance

Test figures are from New Zealand Rugby's records (stats.allblacks.com), which also list two non-Test matches against the New Zealand Barbarians in 2020. Provincial and Chiefs Manawa figures are from rugbyhistory.co.nz.