Layla Sae: from a frozen-meat factory to 24 Tests and a comeback try double in Edinburgh

Layla Sae left school in Palmerston North, gave up sport and went to work packing frozen meat in a factory. A year later a Manawatū halfback talked her into playing rugby again. She has since played 24 Tests for the Black Ferns, gone to a World Cup and, in September 2026, come back from a ruptured knee ligament in under ten months to score twice against Scotland in Edinburgh. She has done all of it while managing type 1 diabetes, which she has lived with since she was four.

Named after a song

Layla Yvonne Jacoba Sae was born on 22 October 2000 and raised in Palmerston North. She is of Samoan heritage, and her name came from the radio. "Dad heard Layla on the radio and that became my name," she told Newsroom's Adam Julian in 2023, explaining that she went without a name for about a week after she was born until the Eric Clapton ballad settled it. She has been told it means angel, she said, although "to be honest I prefer hip hop!"

Her mum is her biggest supporter and her dad, she says, is into every sport, which left her little choice. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just after her fourth birthday.

Volleyball first

Sae played football as a girl, but volleyball was where she first stood out. At St Peter's College in Palmerston North she became a New Zealand age-group representative, played for the New Zealand junior development team and travelled to Manila with an under-19 Māori volleyball team for the Rebisco competition. At the 2018 secondary schools nationals she was named in the tournament team as a left-hand opposite, which she believes made her "the first player in something like 50 years from the lower North Island" to be picked in it.

She also entered the 2018 Wearabull Arts Awards in Bulls with a ball gown made from white plastic bags, collected after an appeal in the school newsletter. It placed second. "I like to try a bit of everything," she told Diabetes New Zealand, and when she finds she is good at something she throws herself into it.

Rugby at St Peter's was limited to a tens side. "If you had a mouthguard, you were in the team," she recalled. She knew little about the game at first but grew to love the contact, the tackling and the rucks.

The factory and the phone call

When she left school in 2018, Sae stepped away from sport altogether and took a job in a factory packing frozen meat, work she has described as a means to an end. In 2019 the Manawatū Cyclones halfback Sarah Swinbanks persuaded her to start playing again. Strong games for Old Boys-Marist, the club New Zealand Rugby lists as hers, earned her a place in the Cyclones' Farah Palmer Cup side that season.

It was a hard start. Manawatū lost all six of their games in 2019 and were spared relegation only because Covid reshaped the competition into regional divisions. In 2020 they beat Tasman 88-0, a record, and beat Wellington at Sky Stadium. In 2021 they won the Championship, scoring more points (328) and tries (48) than any team in the Farah Palmer Cup that year. Sae scored twice in a 67-12 win over Hawke's Bay but missed the final, a 55-12 win over Hawke's Bay, with an ankle injury. "Winning the championship is the highlight of my Manawatū career so far," she said in 2023.

In 2023 Manawatū beat every side in the Championship before losing the final 32-29 to Northland.

Hurricanes Poua

Sae was named in the Hurricanes Poua's first Super Rugby Aupiki squad and made her debut against Chiefs Manawa on 15 March 2022, after Covid cases kept the Poua out of the opening round. That June she played sevens for the Black Ferns Pango team at the Oceania championships.

In 2023, the first season free of Covid disruption, the Poua came from a big half-time deficit to beat Matatū 25-24 in Christchurch, and in the semi-final against Chiefs Manawa at North Harbour Stadium Sae scored her first Super Rugby try, in a 21-43 loss. A week later the Poua beat the Blues 29-24 to finish third. She made 51 tackles that season, the seventh most in the competition, and enjoyed rooming with Black Fern Joanah Ngan-Woo.

In 2024 the Poua finished last, but Sae led Aupiki in carries with 79 and was first equal for defenders beaten with 41, according to Manawatū Rugby. She scored against Chiefs Manawa and Matatū, the second from a 45-metre run off the back of a scrum, and in her last game of the season, against the Blues in Levin, she made 21 tackles and scored again. Julian, writing her NZ Rugby Museum profile, called her form that year "sensational". She added another try against the Blues at Eden Park in 2025.

Living with diabetes

Sae talks about diabetes plainly. She manages her blood sugar through her diet, insulin and extra sugar when she needs it, and she has explained that when a trainer runs on with Powerade and lollies, it is not special treatment. "It's because I'm gassed," she said. "I see diabetes as my challenge," she added, and she does not remember life without it: "It's basically my normal." She has said she would like to do more work around diabetes, to show children and adults what they can do.

Black Fern No.256

In April 2023 she was one of six players handed a Black Ferns contract for the first time. The call came when about 15 of her family happened to be together. "I had a celebration cider. One, just one," she said.

She was named in the Black Ferns' playing squad for the first time that September, and on 30 September 2023 she came off the bench against Australia at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton as the Black Ferns won 43-3. In the inaugural WXV1 she started at blindside flanker on 28 October as Wales were beaten 70-7 in Dunedin, still the Black Ferns' biggest score and winning margin against Wales, and came off the bench a week later as England won 33-12 at Mt Smart Stadium.

Her first Test try came at No.8 in a 57-5 win over the USA in Hamilton in the 2024 Pacific Four Series, and her second at openside in the 62-0 O'Reilly Cup win over Australia at Ballymore in Brisbane that July. She played in all eight Tests in 2024 under Allan Bunting, including the WXV1 losses to Ireland and England in Canada and the 39-14 win over France in Vancouver.

World Cup

In 2025 she started in the 38-12 win over Australia in Newcastle and the 27-27 draw with Canada in Christchurch, and on 25 July she was named in the 33-player squad for the World Cup in England. She started all three pool matches, against Spain in York, Japan in Exeter and Ireland in Brighton, wearing No.8 against Japan. She was not in the 23 for the quarter-final win over South Africa, then came off the bench in the 19-34 semi-final loss to Canada at Ashton Gate and in the 42-26 win over France at Twickenham that brought the Black Ferns the bronze medal. That made 19 Tests.

Harlequins and the knee

In October 2025 Sae and Liana Mikaele-Tu'u signed short-term deals with Harlequins in England's Premiership Women's Rugby, Sae as injury cover until the end of March. A week after arriving in London she made her debut against Exeter on 16 November. Sixteen minutes in, by RugbyPass's account, she was tackled and heard a pop in her knee. It was a grade three tear of the anterior cruciate ligament, and it was her only game for the club.

The Poua confirmed she would miss the 2026 Aupiki season and NZR ruled her out of the Pacific Four Series. Poua head coach Hayden Triggs called her "a cornerstone of the Poua" and said the club would support her rehabilitation. She did that rehab at the Hurricanes' base in Wellington, alongside Hurricanes men coming back from knee injuries, and leaned on Ayesha Leti-I'iga, who had come back from her own ACL injury to play at the 2025 World Cup.

The comeback

New head coach Whitney Hansen named Sae in the 31-player squad for the rest of 2026 on 10 August, though a knee issue kept her out of the 66-19 win over Australia in Auckland. On 12 September in Lyon she came off the bench for her 20th cap in a 28-14 win over France. "Layla is a powerful athlete that thrives in collisions," Hansen said that week, praising her determination and resilience in getting back into the side.

A week later, in the Black Ferns' first Test in Scotland, she started at blindside at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh, played all 80 minutes and scored twice in a 66-14 win. She came off the bench in the 19-26 loss to England at Twickenham and the 81-12 win over France in Hamilton, then started at openside in the 150th Test in Black Ferns history, a 31-12 win over France at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei on 24 October.

By NZR's count she has played 24 Tests, starting 13, and scored four tries, with 16 wins, a draw and seven losses.

What is next

Sae turned 26 in October. The Black Ferns open 2027 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. She has said she would like to return to England's Premiership one day to experience more of it.

Career at a glance

Test figures are New Zealand Rugby's. Aupiki tries are from Wikipedia's season records.