Veisinia Mahutariki-Fakalelu: from two years out injured to every Black Ferns Test of 2026

Not long before she played Test rugby, Veisinia Mahutariki-Fakalelu spent two years out of the game. A knee problem had led to surgery, and she watched friends go on without her. Then a Waikato coach suggested she try prop. Since that conversation in 2024 she has scored in a Farah Palmer Cup final, been named Chiefs Manawa's Player of the Year, started a World Cup quarter-final at 20 and played in every one of the Black Ferns' record 11 Tests in 2026.

Hamilton Girls' High and three sports

Veisinia Lupe Maire Mahutariki-Fakalelu was born in the Waikato on 24 November 2004. She went to Hamilton Girls' High School, and New Zealand Rugby's profile describes a teenager who played rugby, touch and netball and represented Waikato, the Cook Islands and New Zealand at age-grade level. She plays her club rugby for Melville in Hamilton.

The black jersey was the goal from early on. "I had always dreamt of being in the black jersey one day," she told Tagata Pasifika in 2025.

Two years out

Injury nearly took that away. "I took a two year break due to injury," she said. She had problems with her patella that ended in surgery, and she had already had trouble with the same knee three years earlier. She used the time to concentrate on her studies, her family and her faith. "It was a needed break," she said, though watching friends make it while she could not play was, in her words, "really hard".

Prop, at the coach's suggestion

She was a loose forward when she came back. In 2024 Waikato's Farah Palmer Cup coach, James Semple, suggested she move to prop. The person who helped her make the switch was Awhina Tangen-Wainohu, a Waikato team-mate and close friend who was going through a similar journey of her own. "She took me through my first scrum session," Mahutariki-Fakalelu said. "I would not be here today without her and all the other girls."

That season ended in a final. Waikato topped the 2024 Premiership table and hosted the final against Canterbury at FMG Stadium Waikato on 5 October, the province's first home final. Early in the match Mia Anderson was stopped just short after a jinking run, and Mahutariki-Fakalelu darted over from the back of the ruck for Waikato's first try. Canterbury, captained by Laura Bayfield, came back to lead in the second half, but Waikato won 27-25 for their second title. Three of the Waikato players that day, Mahutariki-Fakalelu, Anderson and replacement hooker Vici-Rose Green, and Canterbury's captain would all be Black Ferns team-mates within two years.

Chiefs Manawa rookie

That season earned her a full-time contract with Chiefs Manawa for 2025 as one of the club's Waikato rookies. She scored in the last round, when Chiefs Manawa beat Matatū 28-22 at Ngā Puna Wai in Christchurch, and NZR's match report called her the most destructive ball-carrying prop in the competition. At the club's awards she won both Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year, and she has since committed to Chiefs Manawa for the long term.

A starting debut

Allan Bunting's selectors named her in the 2025 Pacific Four squad, one of three players in line for a first cap. She admitted the professional environment had been a lot to take in, not least being surrounded by players she had watched growing up. "I'm so excited! Everything's free," she said, listing the accommodation and food.

She did not have to wait long. For the last match of the series, against the USA at North Harbour Stadium on 24 May, she was named to start at tighthead alongside Kate Henwood and Georgia Ponsonby, one of four debutants that day along with Vici-Rose Green, Jorja Miller and Risaleaana Pouri-Lane. "Veisinia and Vici-Rose have been with us since our first training camp," Bunting said. "It's now their time." The Black Ferns won 79-14 to take the Pacific Four title.

A World Cup quarter-final at 20

She was named in the World Cup squad as one of three tighthead props, with one Test behind her. She came off the bench in the 62-19 win over Japan at Sandy Park in Exeter, and then, back at the same ground on 13 September, started the quarter-final against South Africa in a front row with Chryss Viliko and Ponsonby. The Black Ferns won 46-17. She was 20.

Every Test of 2026

Under Whitney Hansen in 2026 she became part of a settled front row. She started at tighthead in the first two Pacific Four Tests, the 48-15 win over the USA in Sacramento and the 36-14 win over Canada in Kansas City. Against Australia on the Sunshine Coast on Anzac Day she came off the bench and scored her first Test try in a 40-5 win that retained the Pacific Four title and the O'Reilly Cup.

She was named in the squad for the rest of the year with six caps, and from August she started seven of the eight Tests: the 66-19 win over Australia in Auckland, the 52-20 win in Johannesburg, where NZR said the Springbok Women took the Black Ferns on at scrum and maul, and the 28-14 win over France in Lyon, where NZR noted that the front row of Viliko, Ponsonby and Mahutariki-Fakalelu was unchanged. She came off the bench in Edinburgh and started at Twickenham, where she was shown a yellow card early in the second half of the 19-26 loss to England.

Back home she started all three Tests against France: 81-12 in Hamilton, 31-12 in Whangārei in the Black Ferns' 150th Test, and 36-7 in Christchurch on 31 October. That made 11 appearances from 11 Tests in 2026, and 14 Tests in all, 11 of them starts, with one try. The Black Ferns have won 13 of them.

Faith, family and The Serve

Mahutariki-Fakalelu puts her rugby down to two things. "I am not just representing myself I am also representing my family," she said in 2025, adding that the lesson she has learnt is "just to put God first and everything else will figure itself out". Off the field, NZR noted when she was first picked that she volunteered every week at The Serve in Hamilton.

What is next

She turns 22 on 24 November 2026. The Black Ferns open 2027 against the Wallaroos at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Anzac Day, after the first Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Test, and in September they host the first British and Irish Lions Women's tour, with Tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The 2029 World Cup follows in Australia.

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. NZR's player profile dates her Farah Palmer Cup final try to 2021; match reports from 2021 do not list her among the scorers, and the try came in the 2024 final, which is the year NZR's own squad announcement gives.