Maia Davis: from the Manukura First XV to a sevens title at 18 and a Black Ferns cap at 20

Maia Davis won a world series sevens tournament at 18 and became a Black Fern at 20. In between she won national titles in fifteens, sevens and touch at school, played Farah Palmer Cup rugby for Manawatū while still a pupil, picked up national honours in rugby league, and started a Super Rugby Aupiki final at fullback. On 19 September 2026, in Edinburgh, she came off the bench for her Test debut as Black Fern No 276, and within moments had turned and chased back to make a try-saving tackle. This is the story so far of one of the youngest players in Whitney Hansen's squad.

A rugby house in Hawke's Bay

Davis was born in Napier on 2 April 2006 and is of Ngāti Hineuru and Ngāti Kahungunu descent. She grew up in a sporting family. Both her parents represented Hawke's Bay at first-class level, Newsroom's Adam Julian reported, and her father played 87 times on the wing for the Magpies between 1983 and 1993. Her mother was also a New Zealand Development touch representative. "I was brought up with a rugby ball," Davis told Newsroom. She knew in primary school that rugby was the sport for her, and her hero was Sarah Hirini.

Manukura

She was meant to go to Napier Girls' High School, but when she was not drawn in the enrolment ballot she was sent to Palmerston North to board at Manukura. It was hard at first. "I cried every day, the first two terms," she said. "I wanted to go home." What kept her there, she said, was opportunity. In Year 9 she was already playing First XV rugby, alongside Kaipo Olsen-Baker, now World Rugby's Women's 15s Player of the Year.

The Manukura programme is run by former Black Fern Kristina Sue, with former Black Ferns Sevens player Rhiarna Ferris. Sue remembered a slight newcomer who would scrap for everything and take on the biggest girls in the tackle. "The first thing that stood out about Maia was her competitive edge," Sue said. Manukura played her at halfback, where she could throw a skip pass across the backline and kick a long way. "Maia sees space better than just about any athlete I've coached," Sue said.

The titles came quickly. Davis won six national titles at Manukura: three National Top Four First XV titles, two Condor Sevens crowns and a national touch championship. In the 2022 Top Four final she set up two tries in a 19-19 draw that shared the title with Christchurch Girls' High School. In 2023 she scored from halfway in a 31-0 win over Hamilton Girls' High School, and that year Manukura won all three of its national titles, the touch final going to a drop-off. In 2024 Manukura came from behind to beat Howick College 39-24 in the Top Four final. She also played two campaigns with the New Zealand Under 18 Sevens team.

A Cyclone while still at school

Davis made her Farah Palmer Cup debut for the Manawatū Cyclones in 2023, while still at Manukura. Kerry Geertson's rugbyhistory.co.nz records six games that first season, most of them off the bench, and a try and two conversions. In 2024, when Manawatū named three secondary school pupils in its Cyclones squad, she was one of them, listed with the Freyberg club. Newsroom singled out her three tries in a 55-24 win over Wellington that season, two of them from beyond halfway, and the Cyclones went on to win the Championship, beating Otago 33-3 in the final. By rugbyhistory.co.nz's count she kicked 12 conversions in four games that year.

By the end of 2025 the database had her on 12 games and 56 points for Manawatū, played at halfback, wing and fullback.

League, too

Rugby was not her only code. Coached by veteran broadcaster Ken Laban, she played in the halves for the Wainuiomata girls' league side Ngā Hau e Whā ō Wainuiomata, a team that supplied 14 of the 21 players in the Wellington Orcas squad that won the national under-18 title in October 2024. Davis earned selection in a New Zealand-wide club team. In league she plays in the halves, where, she said, "I have more time and space to make decisions". Laban said: "Maia is a multi-talented, brilliant athlete with a maturity well beyond her chronological age."

Black Ferns Sevens

In October 2024, while still completing Year 13, she was one of two teenagers added to the contracted squad of the Olympic champion Black Ferns Sevens. "I think every sport in New Zealand has eyes on Maia," head coach Cory Sweeney said, singling out her kicking and game awareness.

Her debut came sooner than she expected, at the Vancouver round of the world series in February 2025, aged 18. In the cup final against Fiji, with New Zealand well ahead, she took the ball 80 metres out, sold a dummy and ran in her first senior international try, and her team-mates mobbed her as the Black Ferns Sevens won 41-7. "I grew up admiring Sarah Hirini," she said, and now Hirini had taken her under her wing as a team-mate. "It's surreal." A month later she was part of the New Zealand team that won the Hong Kong Sevens, and she was still part of the programme in the 2025-26 series.

At the time she was also studying for a Bachelor of Sport and Recreation at the University of Waikato.

Matatū

In 2026 Super Rugby Aupiki moved later in the calendar, which allowed nine Black Ferns Sevens players to join the four clubs. Davis signed with Matatū and made her debut, as Matatū player No 67, against the Hurricanes Poua at Maidstone Park in Upper Hutt in the second round, alongside fellow sevens player Alena Saili. Matatū won 18-15.

Fifteens was "a lot more physical, a lot more bodies", she said, "but I love being back and being in the fifteens jersey." What she brought, she said, was her vision: seeing the space and telling her team-mates where it was.

She scored tries against the Poua in Timaru and against the Blues at Ngā Puna Wai in Christchurch, where she also kicked two conversions, and by Wikipedia's count finished the season with six appearances and 14 points. On 25 July she started at fullback in the Aupiki final at One NZ Stadium in Christchurch, in front of 10,067 people, where the Blues won 28-21 with a try in the final minutes.

Black Fern No 276

On 10 August Hansen named her among five uncapped players in the 31-player Black Ferns squad for the rest of 2026, listed as a Matatū and Black Ferns Sevens outside back. Four days later, in the non-Test match against the Black Ferns XV at Maidstone Park, she came off the bench and kicked two conversions in a 62-19 win.

She was not used in the O'Reilly Cup Test at Mt Smart, in Johannesburg or in Lyon, but for the Test against Scotland in Edinburgh she was named on the bench in No 23 to make her debut, alongside her Manawatū team-mate Ngano Tavake. "Maia is a talented athlete," Hansen said, adding that the coaches had loved supporting her growth and that this was "just the beginning of something special for her and for us".

The Black Ferns won 66-14 at Hive Stadium on 19 September, scoring ten tries in their first Test in Scotland. NZR's match report noted that Davis, on as a replacement, immediately retreated to make a try-saving tackle on Scotland centre Rachel Philipps.

She finished 2026 with one Test and one win, plus the non-Test appearance against the Black Ferns XV.

What is next

Davis is 20, with a future in both forms of the game. The Black Ferns' 2027 programme begins with an O'Reilly Cup Test against the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day and builds to the first British and Irish Lions Women's tour in September, with Tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. No squads for 2027 have been named.

Career at a glance

Test figures are New Zealand Rugby's (testCaps 1); World Rugby's team lists agree. Wikipedia, citing RugbyPass, gives a higher try count for her early Cyclones games than rugbyhistory.co.nz; this story uses rugbyhistory.co.nz.