Maama Vaipulu: from the volleyball court to every Test of a record Black Ferns year

In 2020 Maama Vaipulu was a volleyball player who dreamed of the Olympics. Rugby was the other thing she did, the one her father kept nudging her towards. By the end of 2026 Ma'ama Mo'onia Vaipulu, to give her full name as it appears on the team sheets, had scored a try on her Test debut, started three Super Rugby Aupiki finals for the Blues and won all three, signed one of the first long-term contracts the Blues have offered a woman, and played in every one of the Black Ferns' record 11 Tests of the year. This is the story of a lock who found rugby late and has been climbing ever since.

Northland roots and a volleyball court

Vaipulu was born on 26 November 2002 in Kawakawa, according to World Rugby's records, and the NZ Rugby Museum's Adam Julian describes her as being from Kaikohe. She is of Tongan and Māori descent. Sport runs through the family: her father played rugby for Northland, an uncle played Test rugby for Tonga and her mother was a talented basketballer. She is the fourth of five children, and an older brother also plays lock.

Her own first love was volleyball. Vaipulu went to Aorere College in Auckland, where in 2018 she helped the premier girls' volleyball team finish fourth at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships. She went on to represent New Zealand at age-group level and travelled to Bangkok to play. Her sisters played the game too. When she spoke to RNZ in 2024 she described a teenager who wanted to go to the Olympics in volleyball and saw rugby as something she did for fun.

School rugby at Aorere was more relaxed. "My first position ever playing in school was centre," she told RNZ, which she called weird for a player who now stands 185 centimetres. In Year 12 she moved into the forwards and spent a while playing in both the backs and the pack.

Her father was the first to push. "My dad kind of forced me to keep playing," she said, and she has repeated his advice since: "the things that you hate you'll learn to love." Another early believer was Anna Richards, the four-time World Cup winner and World Rugby Hall of Fame inductee, who spotted Vaipulu at an Auckland under-18 trial. "She's been one of my biggest supporters ever since," Vaipulu said.

College Rifles and the Storm

Rugby became her main sport in 2021, when she gave up the volleyball pathway, and she found a home at College Rifles, where lock has been her position ever since. Her brother plays at the same club and they train together. "He's bigger but I think I'm fitter than he is," she told RNZ.

The Auckland Storm picked her in 2022, and the NZR profile calls it a breakthrough season in which she started most games at lock. It ended with a 41-14 loss to Canterbury in the Premiership final. "I was new last year, but they smashed us," she said a year later.

In 2023 she twisted an ankle in a 17-15 win over Wellington, came back, and became a growing presence in an improving pack. She scored her first two tries for Auckland in the 29-22 semi-final win over Waikato. Then, in Christchurch, Auckland beat Canterbury 39-27 in the final: the Storm's first win over Canterbury since 2017 and their first national title since 2015.

That evening her phone rang with a number she did not know. It was Whitney Hansen, now the Black Ferns head coach, telling her she had been picked for the Black Ferns XV to play Samoa's Manusina XV. Her team-mates had told her to keep her phone close. "When it was Whitney, I was speechless," she told NZR.

She had good people around her in that Storm side. Black Ferns locks Eloise Blackwell and Maia Roos were in the same second row, Roos a close friend from College Rifles. "Eloise, I was scared of her for two years," Vaipulu said with a laugh, before explaining that Blackwell was always passing on pointers and warmed to her once she started putting herself forward. Of Richards, who coaches with the Storm, she said: "Oh man, she's a different breed. The GOAT."

At the time she was working for Auckland Rugby, helping to grow the game in primary schools, and named All Black Ardie Savea as her favourite player.

On 23 September 2023 the Black Ferns XV beat Manusina XV 38-12 in relentless rain at Navigation Homes Stadium in Pukekohe. NZR's report singled out the locks, Vaipulu and Laura Bayfield, as "tireless throughout the game". RNZ reported that Black Ferns director of rugby Allan Bunting was watching and noted her physicality.

The Blues

Vaipulu's first Aupiki season with the Blues, in 2023, brought only a few minutes at a time, by her own account, although one of those outings produced two tries in a 33-50 loss to Chiefs Manawa at North Harbour Stadium. She worked on her game, and in 2024 she was playing close to full matches.

On 13 April 2024 she started at lock beside Blackwell as the Blues beat Chiefs Manawa 24-18 to win their first Aupiki title. In 2025 she scored in a 49-26 win over Hurricanes Poua at Eden Park, started the final at lock alongside captain Maiakawanakaulani Roos as the Blues beat Matatū 26-19 to defend the title, and then started the first trans-Tasman Champions Final against the NSW Waratahs at North Harbour Stadium, which was her 20th game for the club. The Blues won it 36-5.

In April 2026 the Blues announced the first long-term contracts in the history of their women's programme. Tara Turner, Jaymie Kolose and Vaipulu, who had all debuted together in 2023, were signed until the end of the 2028 Aupiki season. The club's release credited her with "explosive power and physicality" and described her as a key figure in the Blues' lineout. Head coach Willie Walker said all three were players who "drive standards every day".

Her 2026 Aupiki season was eventful. In the opening round against Hurricanes Poua at Eden Park on 13 June, she was sent off in the 38th minute for striking Poua lock Sam Taylor; the referee showed a yellow card that was upgraded to red. The Blues still won 42-7. She was back to score the first try in a 42-26 win over Chiefs Manawa at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei on 10 July.

The Grand Final against Matatū at One NZ Stadium in Christchurch on 25 July drew more than 10,000 people. Vaipulu started at lock, and the Blues led 21-14 when she was sin-binned in the 77th minute for a head-on-head collision with Matatū hooker Georgia Ponsonby. Matatū scored from a maul to level at 21-21, but with extra time looming the Blues held the restart, worked a penalty, tapped it, and Ruahei Demant put Katelyn Vaha'akolo over in the corner for a 28-21 win and a third straight title. A knee injury kept Vaipulu out of the Champions Final in Sydney a week later, which the Blues won 24-17.

Black Ferns

The contract came in April 2024. Vaipulu was one of five players handed a first Black Ferns deal that year, alongside Hannah King, Kahlia Awa, Maia Joseph and Atlanta Lolohea. "I was actually going through a juggling phase with the two sports," she told TP+, and RNZ reported she gave up volleyball that year. She said she "low key" missed it.

On 11 May 2024 she started at lock beside Roos against the USA at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton, one of three debutants with Maia Joseph and Hannah King. Bunting called it "a special moment for them and their whānau". NZR noted that she became a dual international, rugby and volleyball, the moment she took the field. In the 26th minute she scored the Black Ferns' sixth try in a 57-5 win.

She started again in the 19-22 loss to Canada in Christchurch, then came off the bench in the 12-24 loss to England in London and in two WXV matches in Canada, scoring a try in the 31-49 defeat by England in Langley and helping to beat France 39-14 in Vancouver.

In 2025 she played twice off the bench in the Pacific Four Series, a 38-12 win over Australia in Newcastle and a 27-27 draw with Canada in Christchurch, and was in the squad for the July series. In mid-July she was named instead in the Black Ferns XV to tour South Africa, the first time a New Zealand women's national team had played there. On 26 July she started at lock as the Black Ferns XV beat the Springbok Women 34-26 at Athlone Stadium in Cape Town; the second match, a week later, was lost 41-24. When the 33-strong World Cup squad was named on 25 July, the second-row places went to Bayfield, Alana Bremner, Chelsea Bremner and Roos.

Every Test of 2026

Under Hansen, now head coach, Vaipulu did not miss a Test in 2026. She came off the bench in all three Pacific Four matches, against the USA in Sacramento, Canada in Kansas City and Australia on the Sunshine Coast, and scored in Kansas City as the Black Ferns came from 14-5 down at half-time to beat Canada 36-14, their first win over Canada since 2023.

When Test rugby resumed in August she started at lock beside Roos in the 66-19 win over Australia at Mt Smart Stadium, a match in which she was yellow-carded. In Johannesburg on 5 September, in the Black Ferns' first Test on South African soil, she started again, scored a try and received one of the Black Ferns' four yellow cards in a 52-20 win.

She came off the bench in Lyon as France were beaten 28-14, and then started in Edinburgh, wearing the No. 4 jersey, in the Black Ferns' first Test in Scotland. She scored one of their ten tries in a 66-14 win, and NZR's season review credited her with "a formidable all-round performance". She was on the bench at Twickenham for the 19-26 loss to England, the only defeat of the year.

Back home she started the 81-12 win over France in Hamilton and the 31-12 win in Whangārei, the Black Ferns' 150th Test, and came off the bench in the 36-7 win in Christchurch that closed the series and the season. Eleven Tests, five starts, three tries, ten wins.

Standing

The words most often used about Vaipulu come from the people who picked her. The NZR profile talks about her "hops", the spring she brought from the volleyball court, and describes her first Blues season as one in which she was a dominant force in the lineout. The Blues talk about power and physicality, and Bunting, in RNZ's account, about physicality as well. She describes herself in plainer terms. "I am hoping that I can put myself out there more," she told TP+ in 2024, adding that she wanted to be in uncomfortable spaces so she could learn and grow.

She has also said she would like to learn what the loose forwards do, in case she ever gets fit enough to move there.

What is next

Vaipulu turns 24 on 26 November 2026 with 18 Tests, five Test tries and a Blues contract that runs to the end of the 2028 Aupiki season. The Black Ferns play the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day 2027, after the first Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Test, and then host the British and Irish Lions Women for three Tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in September 2027, the first women's Lions tour.

Career at a glance

Test figures are New Zealand Rugby's (stats.allblacks.com), which match World Rugby's records for her. She also played one non-Test match, against the New Zealand Women XV in Upper Hutt in August 2026.