Ruahei Demant: from the wops of Ōmāio to the most-capped Black Ferns captain

Ōmāio is not a town. There is a shop with a petrol pump, a landline and some food, the nearest pub is an hour's drive away, and on a good day about a hundred people call the place home. Ruahei Demant has said as much herself, more than once, with a grin. From that stretch of eastern Bay of Plenty coastline came the player who would captain the Black Ferns to a World Cup at Eden Park, be named the best women's player in the world, and lead New Zealand more often than any woman before her. This is the story of how she got there, by way of three ruptured knees, a law degree and a club in Remuera that she says she will never leave.

Little Awanui

Devon Ruahei Demant was born on 21 April 1995, the day Team New Zealand won the Louis Vuitton Cup, which is how she came by the nickname Lu. She grew up at Little Awanui, the stretch of Ōmāio the locals call "LA", near the Hāparapara River in the Ōpōtiki district. Her father was a commercial crayfisherman. Her mother is a fluent speaker of te reo Māori and the language was the first one spoken at home. Demant is one of six siblings, and two of her sisters would later sit in the stands in Sydney to watch her first Test.

She is of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Te Whakatōhea and Ngāti Awa descent, the same iwi, as the NZ Rugby Museum profile notes, as the Ioane brothers and Victoria Cross recipient Willie Apiata. Her grandparents and a wider circle of aunties and uncles helped raise the children, and the family traces part of its whakapapa to the Māori Battalion. Rugby ran in the wider whānau too: her relative Whetū Tipiwai, a kaumātua of the Māori All Blacks, composed the Black Ferns haka Ko Uhia Mai, and her cousin Jacinta Nielsen won the 1998 World Cup with the Black Ferns.

Demant went to Tokamaii Kōhanga Reo and then Te Kura Mana Māori o Maraenui, a Māori-medium school near Ōpōtiki with about 80 pupils. There was no girls' rugby, or much girls' anything, so she played football with the boys and was picked for representative sides. Getting to a game could mean a four-hour drive each way. Fitness came from running along State Highway 35, because there was no gym.

Warkworth, a spelling book and a speech

In 2007, just before her 12th birthday, the family sold its crayfish quota and moved north to Leigh, near Warkworth, where her father came to fish. Demant's mother enrolled the children at Mahurangi Christian School in Snells Beach, a small school that eased the move from te reo into an English-speaking classroom. She has described learning English words from a spelling book, writing them down phonetically and finding they still looked wrong. By Year 8 she was head prefect.

Then came Mahurangi College in Warkworth, a roll of about 1,200 after a kura of 80. In 2010, aged 15 and in Year 10, she went to the Ngā Manu Kōrero national secondary schools speech contest in Dunedin, finished second overall in the junior section among 56 finalists and brought home the Dame Whina Cooper Trophy for the best performance by a girl. Her cousin wrote the 12-minute speech around a proverb about diving like a shag. "I literally grew-up with a poi in my hand," she told her local paper at the time. In 2013 she was head girl.

Sport was everywhere. She and her sister Kiritapu played touch for Mahurangi, Harbour and the Sharks and in the Whangateau competition, coached by former All Black Glen Osborne and his wife Kylee, and both sisters made the New Zealand under-15 girls touch team. There was netball, basketball, football, sevens and kapa haka, with her mother as tutor. In 2014 she was awarded a Moana Ngarimu VC Scholarship for her studies, presented in the Grand Hall of Parliament by Education Minister Hekia Parata and Willie Apiata.

Mahurangi College and College Rifles

Fifteen-a-side rugby came late and almost ended before it began. Demant started playing at Mahurangi College and loved it, but the girls' team had 15 players in her first season, ten the next and then none at all. With no team to play for, the sisters looked to Auckland, where College Rifles in Remuera had a reputation for looking after girls' and women's rugby. Demant has told the story of her father driving them to their first training, of two very large Tongan props walking towards the car, and of the sisters begging to be taken home. He refused.

That decision has shaped her career. She has won two Coleman Shield titles with College Rifles in Auckland's premier women's competition, the club kept her involved through every long rehabilitation, and she told Newsroom in 2020: "I'm so lucky to have been at such a supportive club."

Auckland Storm and three knees

Demant was picked for Auckland in 2013, her final year at school, at 17. Ten minutes into a game against Taranaki she ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. It was the first of three. In 2014 she came back and got what she calls "some good minutes" as Auckland won the title. In 2015 she went to a sevens tournament at Mount Maunganui a week before the national sevens and ruptured the right ACL, returned again in time for another Auckland title, then played the first sevens tournament of the following summer and did the left knee a second time. She was 20, and had been told she would never play again.

"All of my ACL injuries have been playing sevens," she said in 2020, adding that she would never play the shortened game again. The third recovery took 18 months, and she has been open about how hard it was mentally as well as physically. Her thinking changed after the second injury: she stopped playing to make higher teams and started playing to have fun with her mates. By her own account she had reached the point of assuming club rugby was all that was left.

Auckland won the Farah Palmer Cup in each of her first three seasons, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and the province lifted it again in 2023. By the time she made the Black Ferns, the museum profile credited her with 22 tries in 46 games for the Storm; Wikipedia's running count has her at 59 games and 304 points for her only province.

Law, work and a full-time job

Through all of this Demant was studying. She worked full-time at an immigration consultancy while doing law and commerce papers part-time at the University of Auckland, later interned at Suncorp New Zealand through the TupuToa programme and, when she found herself with spare time in 2020, took a part-time dispatch job at a courier company because she was bored. She graduated in 2020 with a conjoint Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts, majoring in law and sociology, worked as a deputy registrar in the Judge Alone Trials team at the North Shore District Court and then joined the Auckland firm Dentons Kensington Swan. Her stated aim was to become a sports lawyer. "I'd like to help female athletes understand the terms of their contracts," she told Newsroom. When she was handed the Black Ferns captaincy in 2022 she put the legal career on hold.

The black jersey, at last

Kiritapu got there first. The younger sister made the Black Ferns in 2015 at 18 and played in wins over Canada and the USA. Ruahei's chance came in 2018, when incumbent first five Victoria Subritzky-Nafatali ruptured an ACL, and on 18 August 2018, aged 23, she started at first five-eighth against Australia at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The Black Ferns won 31-11, with captain Fiao'o Fa'amausili leading the haka through laryngitis. A week later she started again as Australia were beaten 45-17 at Eden Park, in front of a crowd that had filled up for the All Blacks who followed. "I never thought, through all of my injuries, that day would come," she said.

That November the sisters toured together, beating the USA 67-6 in Chicago and France 14-0 in Toulon before a 27-30 loss in Grenoble. The Demants were the first Māori sisters to play for the Black Ferns and only the fifth set of sisters in the team's history.

Demant started her first 11 Tests. In 2019 she was part of the Super Series win in San Diego, including a 28-13 defeat of England in the first meeting since the 2017 World Cup final, a result that stood as England's last loss until the Black Ferns met them again at Eden Park three years later. In August 2019 she scored a 40-metre solo try in a 47-10 win over Australia in Perth, and that November she played for the Barbarians in a 29-15 win over Wales in Cardiff. Covid wiped out the 2020 Test programme, and the 2021 northern tour brought four heavy defeats to England and France. She played in all of them and, by Adam Julian's account for Newsroom, was subdued.

Blues, from day one

On 1 May 2021 Demant played first five for the Blues against the Chiefs at Eden Park in the first women's Super Rugby match in New Zealand. When Super Rugby Aupiki began in 2022 she was in the Blues side that beat Matatū 21-10 in the opening game and in the one that lost 35-0 to Chiefs Manawa in the decisive final round. The Blues lost the 2023 semi-final 26-23 to Matatū at North Harbour Stadium, then beat Chiefs Manawa 24-18 at Eden Park in 2024 for their first title, a season in which Demant missed games with a wrist injury.

In 2025 she played every minute. In the final at Eden Park she scored the Blues' first try off a Portia Woodman-Wickliffe break, converted it, and in the 61st minute put Woodman-Wickliffe over with a one-armed offload in traffic as the Blues came from 12-0 down to beat Matatū 26-19 and become the first team to defend the Aupiki title. Five days later they beat the NSW Waratahs 36-5 at North Harbour Stadium in the first trans-Tasman Champions Final. In 2026, now a fully professional competition, the Blues went to Christchurch and won 28-21 in front of 10,067 at One NZ Stadium, Demant kicking three from three and, with the scores level and extra time looming, timing the pass that sent Katelyn Vaha'akolo into the corner for the winner. A week later the Blues beat the Waratahs 24-17 at Leichhardt Oval. Three Aupiki titles in a row, two trans-Tasman crowns.

Captain

When Wayne Smith took over the Black Ferns in 2022 with 159 days until a home World Cup final, he needed a captain. Les Elder was injured. Smith has said he overheard Demant at three-quarter time of a practice match asking her team-mates what they were scared of and where their courage to have a crack had gone, and decided that was the voice he wanted. She led the Black Ferns out at Tauranga Domain on 6 June 2022 against Australia, won 23-10, and the side did not lose again that year.

She asked for Kennedy Simon to be made co-captain, switched between first and second five through the inaugural Pacific Four Series, which the Black Ferns won while conceding one try in three Tests, and scored two tries in the 52-5 O'Reilly Cup win in Christchurch. At the World Cup she was player of the match in the 56-12 pool win over Wales and led the tournament with 18 offloads. The semi-final against France was won 25-24 when Caroline Drouin missed a late penalty. On 12 November 2022, in front of 42,579 at Eden Park, then a world record for a women's international, England led 14-0 inside ten minutes on the back of a 30-match winning run. The Black Ferns won 34-31 and Demant was player of the match in the final. She scored four tries at the tournament.

"Smithy made footy so simple and so much fun," she said later, describing a side that stopped kicking the ball out and treated attack like chess, drawing defences narrow to play wide.

The awards followed in a rush. In Monaco she was named World Rugby Women's 15s Player of the Year ahead of Sophie de Goede, Alex Matthews, Laure Sansus and Portia Woodman. At the New Zealand Rugby Awards she won the Kelvin R Tremain Memorial Player of the Year, only the third woman after Kendra Cocksedge and Sarah Hirini to take the top prize, along with the Tom French Memorial Māori Player of the Year, Black Ferns Player of the Year and the Players' Association players' player award. The Black Ferns were Halberg Team of the Year. In the 2023 King's Birthday Honours she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rugby.

The hard years and the fiftieth

Captaincy in the professional era has been less forgiving. Co-captain with Simon in 2023, Demant led the Black Ferns to the Pacific Four title but lost 17-18 to France in Wellington and 12-33 to England at Eden Park in the first WXV. In 2024 there were two heavy defeats to England, a 19-22 loss to Canada in Christchurch in which she made 16 carries, and a 27-29 loss to Ireland in Vancouver. From a 39-14 win over France in Vancouver on 12 October 2024 the Black Ferns went nine Tests unbeaten with Demant playing in every one.

At the 2025 World Cup in England she reached 50 Tests in the semi-final against Canada at Ashton Gate in Bristol, only the third Black Fern to get there after Cocksedge and Fa'amausili. The Black Ferns lost 19-34, their title gone, and she captained the side that beat France 42-26 at Twickenham for bronze. In Exeter during the tournament she went looking for the English side of her whakapapa: her first name, Devon, honours the county her grandfather's family of deep-sea fishermen left for New Zealand.

Sir Wayne Smith's verdict that month was unambiguous: "She's the Dan Carter of women's rugby."

Bristol and a record

In November 2025 New Zealand Rugby released her for four months with Bristol Bears in England's Premiership Women's Rugby, the first time she had played club rugby outside Auckland. She played eight matches and scored two tries, finishing with a showpiece game against Harlequins at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, and told the BBC she would love to return one day.

She came home for the 2026 Pacific Four Series under new head coach Whitney Hansen and, in the opening Test against the USA in Sacramento on 11 April, led the Black Ferns for the 36th time, passing Fa'amausili's record of 35 Tests as captain. By NZR's count she had led or co-led the side to 28 wins, sharing the job 19 times with Kennedy Tukuafu and three times with Alana Bremner. "There's a real humility to who Lu is," Hansen said before the match. "Everything stops when she speaks."

The Black Ferns retained the Pacific Four title and the O'Reilly Cup, then flew to Johannesburg and beat South Africa 52-20 in the first Test on South African soil. Demant hurt a calf in that match and missed the whole European leg: Lyon, Edinburgh and the 19-26 loss at Twickenham that was the Black Ferns' only defeat of the year. She returned off the bench for the 81-12 win over France in Hamilton, then captained the side in Whangārei, where the Black Ferns won their 150th Test 31-12 and she held Ambre Mwayembe up over the line, and in Christchurch, where her break from the back of a scrum deep in her own 22 set up the first try in a 36-7 win. That was her 59th Test, on 31 October 2026, and it closed a season of ten wins from a record 11 Tests.

Standing

Smith chose her for her voice and kept her for her head. The NZ Rugby Museum profile describes a horror run of injuries and a player who established herself regardless, and Demant herself puts the change down to experience: "I became more comfortable with experience, able to express myself more." Hansen's description is of a leader who does not need many words.

Demant's record sits beside the game's best. World Rugby Player of the Year in 2022, one of a small group of Black Ferns to win it, with Kendra Cocksedge, Portia Woodman and, in 2026, Kaipo Olsen-Baker. The most Tests as Black Ferns captain. A World Cup won as captain and player of the match in the final. Three Aupiki titles and two Champions Finals with the Blues, three provincial titles with Auckland, and a club she still calls home.

What is next

The Black Ferns meet the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium on Anzac Day 2027 in a double-header with the first Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Test, then host the British and Irish Lions Women on their first tour, in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in September 2027. The World Cup in Australia follows in 2029. Demant turns 32 in April 2027. She has said nothing public about when she will stop, and the Blues and the Black Ferns have given no sign of planning without her.

Career at a glance

Sources are listed below. Test figures use New Zealand Rugby's records; the allblacks.com profile lists 62 matches, which includes non-Test games.