Tara Turner: the backyard touch star who became the Black Ferns' halfback

Tara Turner learned the game in a Whangārei backyard, playing touch with a family of nine. She was a Touch Black at 16, a first five-eighth and fullback for Northland at 18, and in 2025 the Blues turned her into a halfback. A year later she was a Black Fern. In her first Test start, in Edinburgh, she scored a try and was named player of the match, and a month later she started in front of her home crowd in Whangārei in the Black Ferns' 150th Test.

A backyard full of touch

Tara-Leigh Turner was born in Whangārei on 22 December 2003, one of seven children in a family where everyone plays touch, sometimes in the same team. The family has played together for their club, Galaxy, in Whangārei and for their marae, Te Awamaarahi, at the Tainui Games. "We just played full games in the backyard," she told New Zealand Rugby in 2022, and growing up in a household that size, she said, taught her to share and to get along with different personalities.

She started playing touch as a small child and was quick to stand out. She made a New Zealand under-16 team at 13, and in 2019, aged 15, she captained the Te Tai Tokerau under-21 women's side to a second straight national title in Rotorua. Both the semi-final and the final went to a sudden-death drop-off, in which teams lose a player at a time until someone scores, and the final came down to three players a side. "There was no way I was leaving the field," she said. Her coach, Joe Rau, called her "one of the fittest and fastest women going around in Northland sport".

In March 2020, at 16 and in Year 12 at Whangārei Girls' High School, she was named in the Touch Blacks women's team to play Australia in Newcastle. "I was pretty excited just to trial in the first place," she told Newsroom's LockerRoom. She later said Covid stopped a New Zealand open trial she had been picked for that year. In touch she plays in the middle: "My footwork and vision are pretty good."

The Tania Dalton scholarship

Getting to tournaments was always a struggle for one of seven children in a code with little funding. In 2020, a year after missing out, Turner was chosen as one of 12 young female athletes for the Tania Dalton Foundation's scholarship programme, set up in memory of the Silver Ferns world champion. It gave her financial support for three years, along with mentoring and personal development; her mentor was the former New Zealand volleyball player Suzy McAsey. The same 2020 intake included two future Blues and Black Ferns team-mates, Maama Vaipulu and Patricia Maliepo.

"I'm a shy person so it's helped boost my confidence in public speaking," Turner said in 2022. "It's fair to say that I'm a different person now."

Into rugby

She had her first taste of rugby at 14, at the urging of Peter Nock, father of Māori All Blacks halfback Sam Nock. She played sevens at Whangārei Girls' High and for the Northland under-18 team, and by 2020 she was getting serious about both fifteens and sevens, with the Black Ferns Sevens and Portia Woodman in her sights. She played her club rugby for Hora Hora, and in 2022, the club's centenary year, she helped them win the Rana Paraha Trophy for the 19th time.

That same year, aged 18, she made her Farah Palmer Cup debut for the Northland Kauri. She played first five-eighth against Tasman and scored a try in a 29-10 win, then covered fullback in a 10-39 loss to Otago. "That first game was pretty scary, I'm used to playing halfback," she said, adding that scoring the try had left her "bloody stoked".

The Blues and a Northland title

The Blues signed her for the 2023 Super Rugby Aupiki season, an 18-year-old from Northland coming off a strong provincial campaign. Head coach Willie Walker held her up as an example of the club growing talent from within its own region. She made her Aupiki debut that season as a utility back, covering first five and fullback, according to NZR, and later that year she was part of the Northland side that won the Farah Palmer Cup Championship, beating Manawatū 32-29 in the final.

Injury kept her out of the 2024 season.

The switch to halfback

When she came back to the Blues in 2025, she came back as a halfback. Stuff reported that she credited a coach at the Blues with seeing a halfback in her that year. She started at No.9 when the Blues beat Matatū 26-19 at Eden Park on 12 April 2025 to keep the Aupiki title, and again five days later when they beat the NSW Waratahs 36-5 at North Harbour Stadium in the first trans-Tasman Champions Final.

In April 2026 she, Maama Vaipulu and Jaymie Kolose became the first players to sign three-year contracts with the Blues, tying her to the club until 2028.

Black Fern No.269

By then she was a Black Fern in waiting. Whitney Hansen's first squad as Black Ferns head coach, named in March 2026 for the Pacific Four Series, included eight newcomers, and Turner was one of them. On 11 April at Heart Health Park in Sacramento she came off the bench in a 48-15 win over the USA, one of four debutants that day with Mia Anderson, Justine McGregor and Maddison Robinson. She was a replacement again in the 36-14 win over Canada in Kansas City and the 40-5 win over Australia on the Sunshine Coast that secured the Pacific Four title and the O'Reilly Cup.

The quick tap

Back at the Blues for the 2026 Aupiki season, she scored in both wins over Chiefs Manawa, the second of them at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei. In the final against Matatū at One NZ Stadium in Christchurch on 25 July, with the scores level at 21-21 a minute after the hooter, the Blues won a penalty deep in Matatū's 22. The Blues could have kicked for goal. Turner tapped and went instead, and a couple of phases later Katelyn Vaha'akolo powered over for the try that won the Blues a third straight title, 28-21. Blues assistant coach Carlos Spencer said afterwards that the coaches encourage their players to be brave and that the call had paid off. A week later she started again as the Blues beat the Waratahs 24-17 at Leichhardt Oval in Sydney.

Edinburgh, and home

A hamstring injury kept her out of the Black Ferns' 66-19 win over Australia in Auckland in August, and Ariana Bayler was called in as cover. Turner came off the bench in Johannesburg, where the Black Ferns beat South Africa 52-20, and in the 28-14 win over France in Lyon.

On 19 September at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh, in the Black Ferns' first Test in Scotland, she got her first Test start, at halfback alongside Hannah King. She scored early in the second half as the Black Ferns ran in three tries in ten minutes on the way to a 66-14 win, and was named player of the match. The NZ Herald credited her quick delivery from the ruck with keeping the side moving forward.

She went back to the bench for the 19-26 loss to England at Twickenham and the 81-12 win over France in Hamilton. Then, for the 150th Test in Black Ferns history, against France at Semenoff Stadium on 24 October, NZR named "Northland halfback Tara Turner" to start in front of her home crowd. The Black Ferns won 31-12. She was concussed in the second half, according to RugbyPass, and missed the final Test of the year in Christchurch, with Bayler again taking her place.

That made nine Tests in her first season, eight of them wins, with one try.

What is next

Turner turns 23 in December. The Blues have her under contract until 2028, and the Black Ferns open 2027 against the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day, after the first Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Test. In September they host the first British and Irish Lions Women's tour, with Tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Career at a glance

Test figures are New Zealand Rugby's. NZR also lists one non-Test match, against a New Zealand Women XV in Upper Hutt in August 2026. Aupiki details are from Wikipedia's season records.