Fifty of NZ's Best Schoolgirl Players Named for U18 North v South Showdown

The future of the Black Ferns is on show in the Waikato this week, and fifty teenage girls from schools and clubs across Aotearoa are right in the middle of it.

NZ Rugby announced on 26 June that 50 players have been selected for the 2026 Under 18 Girls' Pathways Squad, split into North and South squads of 25. The group assembles in Hamilton from 5-10 July for a high-performance camp, before the headline act: a North v South match at St Peter's School in Cambridge on Thursday 9 July, livestreamed from midday so whānau everywhere can tune in.

The names on the team sheets read like a map of the girls' school game. NZ Rugby's squad lists feature players from powerhouse programmes including Hamilton Girls' High School, Epsom Girls' Grammar and Westlake Girls' High School in the North squad, with Christchurch Girls' High School and four-time national champions MANUKURA among those represented in the South.

And the pathway is already delivering. "The pathways opportunities for women and girls continue to increase and evolve and we've seen six players from last year's squads kick on to earn professional contracts in Super Rugby Aupiki," NZR Women's High Performance Pathways Manager Kendra Cocksedge said in the announcement. Those six, Amber Mundell and Levonah Motuliki (Chiefs Manawa), Amarante Sititi, Ffion Penney and Ella Henderson (nib Blues), and Poppy Baxter (Matatū), went from last year's camp to professional rugby in the space of a single season.

The camp itself is only in its second year. When NZ Rugby unveiled the inaugural edition, Cocksedge called it "a major development" as the first national U18 high performance camp for girls, while NZR Head of Women's High Performance Hannah Porter explained the philosophy: "We want to develop the players' physical foundations and build their awareness of themselves and others." Selection draws on Provincial Union and school nominations, with the North squad drawn from unions within or north of East Coast, Bay of Plenty, King Country and Taranaki, and the South squad from Whanganui, Hawke's Bay and Poverty Bay down.

It all sits inside a bigger 2026 push. NZ Rugby has also announced an enhanced Secondary Schools and U18 Pathways Programme, and the national schools calendar keeps growing for girls, from the Hine Pounamu First XV championship to the Condor Sevens and its prize trip to Japan's SANIX tournament.

For fifty families, though, this week is simply about a jersey, a camp, and a game to remember on a Cambridge afternoon. North or South, the girls' game wins either way.