Grassroots to Greatness: Manukura Girls Crowned Manawatū Team of the Year

The most successful team in girls' First XV rugby has added another trophy to a very crowded cabinet, and this one recognises everything behind the wins.

At the Sport Manawatū Regional Sports Awards on 11 June, Scoop reported that MANUKURA Girls Rugby was named Manawatū Standard Team of the Year, while coach Kristina Sue collected the Manawatū & TRC Toyota Coach of the Year Award for rugby union. "Tonight, we celebrate the full continuum of sport, from grassroots through to elite, because the reality is, you can't have one without the other," Sport Manawatū chief executive Kelly Shanks said at the awards.

Few teams embody that continuum like Manukura. The Palmerston North kura's girls' First XV are the reigning national champions four years running, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, a streak The Post summed up simply: four national titles in a row.

Last September's decider was the tightest of the lot. As the NZ Herald reported, Manukura edged a superb Hamilton Girls' High School side 20-17 in the National Top Four final, with lock Kingston-Ryze Akuhata-Brown Taiapa crashing over for the winner. "She's known for her big carries. She loves those close quarters and tight spaces," Sue told the Herald. The year before, NZ Rugby reported Manukura lifted the Hine Pounamu trophy with a 39-24 win over Howick College at Arena Manawatū.

The engine behind it all is habit. RNZ's Jimmy Ellingham visited the kura ahead of last year's finals and found a team training every school-day morning at the new campus that opened in 2024. "We have been training every school day morning ever since the beginning of this year," Taiapa told RNZ. Founded around two decades ago by Nathan Durie and Yvette McCausland-Durie, the roughly 180-student kura weaves te ao Māori through everything it does, with Sue, a former triple international, coaching alongside Rhiarna Ferris.

Now the 2026 season brings the question the whole country is asking: can Manukura make it five in a row? Whatever happens come finals time, the Manawatū has already given its answer about what this team means to the region.