Liana Mikaele-Tu'u: from Hastings Girls' first First XV to the Blues' title-winning try

With 15 minutes left in the 2024 Super Rugby Aupiki final, the Blues were 18-5 down to Chiefs Manawa at a rain-soaked Eden Park. They clawed back to 18-17, and then, in the closing stages, Liana Mikaele-Tu'u crashed over for the try that won the club its first title. She was playing with a black eye the size of a golf ball. She had only taken up rugby in Year 11, the year her Hastings school first put together a girls' First XV. Five years after that she was a world champion, and by 2026 she had been Black Ferns Player of the Year, won three Aupiki titles and been named the Blues' Player of the Year.

A rugby family in Hastings

Liana Elizabeth Tomzena Mikaele-Tu'u was born on 2 March 2002. Hawke's Bay Today has described her as Hastings born and raised, and she grew up in a rugby household. The New Zealand Rugby Museum profile, written by Adam Julian, records that her father played for Samoa. Her older brothers are twins, Marino and Antonio, and both became professional players. Marino, a loose forward like his sister, won the world under-20 title with New Zealand in 2017 and went on to play for Hawke's Bay, the Highlanders and the All Blacks XV.

She is proud of her Samoan heritage. In a 2024 story on Pasifika players, RNZ identified her with the Samoan villages of Lefagoalii and Sinamoga, and she told the broadcaster she hoped to inspire Samoan children in New Zealand.

Hastings Girls' High School

She had serious netball ambitions too. At Hastings Girls' High School she played in the school's A netball team and made the Hawke's Bay under-17 netball side two years running, Hawke's Bay Today reported in 2019.

Rugby came later. According to the museum profile, she first played in Year 11, the year Hastings Girls' finally formed a First XV, with the former Black Ferns halfback Emma Jensen as coach. In Year 12 she scored a hat-trick in the 2018 Hawke's Bay secondary schoolgirls final. In her last year at school, 2019, Hastings Girls' won the Hawke's Bay competition for the second year in a row and reached the semi-finals of the Hurricanes competition.

The Hawke's Bay Tui

In 2019 she missed two months of the club season, including most of the Tui trial games, with a fractured finger, yet she was still named in the Hawke's Bay Tui squad for the Farah Palmer Cup. She debuted off the bench at No 8 in a win over North Harbour, playing 40 minutes, and a week later, aged 17 and still in Year 13, she was given her first start at lock against Taranaki at McLean Park in Napier, a position she had never played. Her brother Marino was due to play for the Magpies against Taranaki on the same ground later that night.

The step up was obvious to her. At school, she told Hawke's Bay Today, she played against girls "half my size"; for the Tui she met opponents "twice my size". She had made up her mind about the future, though. "Rugby will be my No 1 winter sport now," she said.

She played six games for Hawke's Bay that season, four of them at lock, and scored two tries, according to rugbyhistory.co.nz. The Tui reached the Championship final, which they lost 24-20 to Otago. Two Black Ferns were in that Tui side: Jensen at halfback, and the first five-eighth Krysten Cottrell, who had coached Mikaele-Tu'u before playing alongside her. Jensen also offered to help her choose a club in Auckland.

College Rifles, the Storm and a parked car

In 2020 she moved to Auckland to study physiotherapy and joined College Rifles. She was soon in the Auckland Storm side, playing six games, five of them at flanker, as Auckland reached the Farah Palmer Cup semi-finals.

The 2021 season was cut short. Auckland spent 107 days in Covid lockdown and the Storm's campaign was abandoned after four games. The museum profile tells how she kept fit on the advice of her trainer, James Young: by pushing a Mazda Demio in an open car park, at least twice a week for an hour at a time. "I knew there were a few people watching me thinking I was crazy," she said.

In August 2023 she was cited after a 25-8 win over Waikato for making head contact with an opponent and was suspended for two games, RugbyPass reported. She returned for the Premiership final in Christchurch on 9 September, when Auckland beat Canterbury 39-27 to win the title. By the end of 2023 she had played 16 games for the Storm.

The first Blues

On 1 May 2021 she came off the bench for the Blues against the Chiefs at Eden Park in the first women's Super Rugby match played in New Zealand. The museum profile records that she and Marino became the first brother and sister to play Super Rugby.

When Super Rugby Aupiki began in March 2022 she started at No 8 in the Blues' first match, a 21-10 win over Matatū in Hamilton. Hawke's Bay Today reported that she won a penalty for holding on just 30 seconds into the game. "The girls were pumped and the forwards were hissing," she said. That year she was also one of the first players given a full-time Black Ferns contract. She took a break from her physiotherapy studies and described herself as "living the dream".

The black eye at Eden Park

The 2024 final was played at Eden Park on 13 April. Chiefs Manawa led 18-5 with a quarter of an hour left. Kahlia Awa scored from close range, Katelyn Vaha'akolo finished out wide and Krysten Cottrell landed the sideline conversion to make it 18-17. Then Mikaele-Tu'u went over for the winning try, which the television match official checked before it was awarded. Adam Julian, writing for superrugby.co.nz, noted the golf ball-sized black eye she carried through the match. The Blues won 24-18.

"It's what dreams are made of," she said afterwards. "The try is for my sisters."

A year later the Blues became the first team to defend the Aupiki title, beating Matatū 26-19 at Eden Park. "Regardless of the result, we wanted to play with heart," Mikaele-Tu'u told Sky Sport. In the 2026 final in Christchurch, with the scores level at 14-14, she was part of the build-up to Atlanta Lolohea's second try, and the Blues went on to win 28-21 with a try in the 80th minute for a third straight title. "We're a faith-driven team," she said.

In the 2026 regular season she scored three tries, two against Hurricanes Poua and one against Matatū, according to Wikipedia's season record. That July the club named her nib Blues Player of the Year and Forward of the Year. To the end of 2025 she had played 19 games and scored three tries for the Blues, according to rugbyhistory.co.nz.

A Black Fern at 19

The Black Ferns had not played a Test in almost two and a half years when Glenn Moore named his side to play England at Sandy Park in Exeter on 31 October 2021. It was the team's 100th Test, and 1News reported that there were nine debutants in the match-day squad, among them the teenagers Mikaele-Tu'u and Patricia Maliepo on the bench. Mikaele-Tu'u was 19. England won 43-12.

"Man it was a fast game when I got on," she told the museum profile. "I've never experienced that level of intensity before." She started the next three Tests, at No 8 at Northampton and in Pau and at blindside flanker in Castres. All four tour Tests were lost, but the museum profile records that she was nominated for Black Ferns Player of the Year.

A World Cup cut short

Under Wayne Smith in 2022 she started at No 8 in the June win over the USA in Whangārei and was named for the home World Cup. She started the opening 41-17 win over Australia at Eden Park, scored a try in the 57-0 win over Scotland in Whangārei, and started the 55-3 quarter-final win over Wales.

In the semi-final against France at Eden Park she broke her thumb a minute before halftime. RugbyPass reported that it was strapped at the break, but the tape would not hold and the team doctor ruled her out. The Black Ferns won 25-24. Assistant coach Wes Clarke said she was "gutted" to miss the final. "She's a special human," he said, adding that she would keep helping the team off the field. A week later she watched as the Black Ferns beat England 34-31 to become world champions. RugbyPass has noted that she and Marino were the first brother and sister to be part of New Zealand World Cup-winning squads.

"To accomplish something so early in my career is something I will never forget," she told RNZ in 2024.

Player of the Year

In 2023, under Allan Bunting, she started all seven Tests at No 8. In Ottawa against the USA she was sent to the sin bin, then came back on and scored in a 39-17 win that completed a Pacific Four title. She scored again in the 18-17 loss to France in Wellington in the first WXV. In December she was named Black Ferns Player of the Year at the New Zealand Rugby Awards.

She played all eight Tests in 2024, most of them at blindside flanker, and scored in the 67-19 win over Australia at North Harbour Stadium. The year also brought defeats by Canada, England twice and Ireland.

World Cup bronze and Harlequins

In 2025 she went to her second World Cup, in England. She scored in the opening 54-8 win over Spain in York, came off the bench against Japan, and started against Ireland, South Africa in the quarter-final, Canada in the semi-final in Bristol and France in the bronze-medal match at Twickenham. She scored one of the Black Ferns' three tries in the 34-19 semi-final defeat by Canada, and the team finished third after beating France 42-26.

That October Harlequins signed her as injury cover in the Premiership Women's Rugby competition, to the end of March 2026, under a partnership between the London club and New Zealand Rugby. It was her first taste of rugby in the northern hemisphere. Harlequins' head of women's rugby, Andy Rhys Jones, called her and Layla Sae "two world-class talents". Women's Rugby Data credits her with four tries for the club.

A record year

Back home in 2026, under new coach Whitney Hansen, the Black Ferns played a record 11 Tests and won 10. Mikaele-Tu'u played in every one of them, ten as a starter. She scored in the 66-19 win over Australia in Auckland in August, and in Lyon in September her late try sealed a 28-14 win over France. She started at No 8 in Johannesburg, in the Black Ferns' first Test on South African soil.

In the final Test of the year, against France in Christchurch on 31 October, RNZ reported that her no-look overhead pass set up Shyrah Tuliau-Tua'a's opening try. The Black Ferns won 36-7 to sweep the series 3-0. It was her 46th Test.

Off the field

Mikaele-Tu'u and her close friend Maiakawanakaulani Roos, who made her own Test debut a week later in 2021, have worked together as mentors at Tāmaki College in Auckland, talking to students who are struggling to get to class. "Giving back to the community is something I believe in," she told the museum profile.

Her ambitions are big. "I'd love to be the best player in the world to be honest," she told RNZ in January 2024, at the announcement of the first British and Irish Lions women's tour.

What is next

That tour is now close. The Black Ferns play the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day 2027, and then host the British and Irish Lions Women in three Tests: Auckland on 11 September, Wellington on 18 September and Christchurch on 25 September. Mikaele-Tu'u will be 25.

Career at a glance

Provincial and Super Rugby figures to the end of 2025 are from rugbyhistory.co.nz. Test figures are from World Rugby's match records and New Zealand Rugby team lists; the New Zealand Rugby profile lists 47 matches, which includes one non-Test game. World Rugby's records give Wellington as her birthplace; we have followed Hawke's Bay Today and Wikipedia, which give Hastings. Awards: Black Ferns Player of the Year nominee 2021; Black Ferns Player of the Year 2023; nib Blues Player of the Year and Forward of the Year 2026.