Cheryl Waaka: two World Cups with the Black Ferns, then a lifetime building rugby in Kaikohe

Cheryl Waaka, who won two World Cups with the Black Ferns and then spent the rest of her life building rugby in Kaikohe and the Far North, died on Sunday 11 October. She was 56, and had been living with stage four bowel cancer.

The player

Waaka played 20 Tests for the Black Ferns and was on the winning side in 19 of them. She was part of the squads that won the World Cup in 1998 and again in 2002, and in the 2002 final against England she scored a try. Those two tournaments were the start of the Black Ferns' long run at the top of the women's game, and Waaka was one of the people who made that run possible.

The builder

Her second career mattered just as much. Back home she became president of the Kaikohe Rugby Football Club and the first woman to coach a senior men's club team in Northland. In the 2023 New Year Honours she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rugby and the community. Northland Rugby named her in its women's team of the century in 2024 and as a Northland Legend of Sport in 2025. The union called her a trailblazer, and the word is the right one.

The community she built, and the one that showed up

When Waaka needed an unfunded cancer drug, the community she had spent decades serving raised more than $82,000 to pay for it. She used her diagnosis to speak publicly about bowel cancer and the importance of getting checked, which is the kind of thing that saves lives in places far from a hospital.

Her family described her as a "beloved sister, friend and legend." For the girls playing rugby in Northland this weekend, that legend is the reason there is a team to play for.

Our thoughts are with her whānau, her club and everyone in Kaikohe.