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Players to watch in Super Rugby Aupiki 2025
By Adam Julian
The Black Ferns have their work cut out to defend the Rugby World Cup in England in 2025 following two defeats to England and a shock upset at the hands of Canada in May.
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While the Black Ferns have an abundance of quality outside backs and a growing cohort of robust loose forwards, tight forwards are an area of concern.
Super Rugby Aupiki always throws up a bundle of new names to watch, including more flankers and speed merchants. In 2025 there must be a focus on finding the best front rowers to win a seventh World Cup title.
Elizabeth Moimoi (Blues)
A product of the College Rifles club, the abrasive loose forward made her Farah Palmer Cup (FPC) debut for Auckland in 2022. In 2023 she helped the Storm win the Premiership title for the first time in eight seasons. This year she was Auckland’s best forward in a side that had 19 players aged 20 or less.
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She made 16 tackles and ran rampant in the winning of the JJ Stewart trophy against Canterbury. Her two tries against Bay of Plenty were telling in a 29-24 victory while she was lionhearted in two hidings against Waikato making 43 tackles across both games against the eventual Premiership champions.
Moimoi took her chance in Super Rugby Aupiki 2024 when Liana Mikaele Tu’u was out of action. She played in four victories by the Blues, including the 24-18 win in the final against Chiefs Manawa where Mikaele Tu’u ironically scored the winning try.
Awhina Tangen-Wainohu (Blues)
The powerhouse prop helped Waikato win the FPC Premiership in 2021, scoring the winning try in the final against Canterbury. Earlier that year she featured for Chiefs Manawa in their first-ever win against the Blues at Eden Park.
She was selected for the Black Ferns World Cup team in 2022 and scored a try in the opening round 41-17 victory over Australia. A serious neck injury has since curtailed her progress but in a new city, Tangen-Wainohu is eager to scale the heights of two years ago. She has helped run front-row clinics for the Waikato Rugby Union spending a lot of time mentoring Vesinia Fakalelu.
Veisinia Fakalelu (Chiefs Manawa)
Statistically, Waikato enjoyed the most dominant scrum in the FPC. Fakalelu added additional value with her explosive carrying which saw her rank inside the top ten for most defenders beaten. While at Hamilton Girls’ High School, Fakalelu won two National Secondary Schools touch titles. She is highly rated by Waikato coach James Semple who stressed she has the size, power, and work ethic to go all the way.
Grace Houpapa-Barrett (Chiefs Manawa)
With incumbent Black Ferns hooker Luka Connor scoring a record 16 tries in 14 games across three seasons for Manawa, Houpapa-Barrett inst a guaranteed starter but the former Black Fern was equally prolific in the FPC for Premiership winners Waikato. Hopapa-Barrett scored 11 tries in eight games crossing the stripe in every fixture, including the 27-25 win over Canterbury in the final. Her carrying and tackling are destructive and if her throwing is on point, it makes for a toxic package.
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Forne Burkin and Natalie Delmare with Hurricanes Poua are two former Black Ferns hookers looking to challenge for a 2025 Rugby World Cup place.
Elinor-Plum King (Hurricanes Poua)
A nominee for FPC player of the year, Plum-King has played 26 games (19 wins) for Manawatu and scored six tries. In a struggling Hurricanes Poua outfit last year she appeared in all six matches and scored tries in both games against Chiefs Manawa.
Athletic with the ball in hand, her work rate on defence is impressive and her strength over the ball is growing. She is a product of Mankura, the national secondary school First XV rugby champions.
Harmony Katui (Hurricanes Poua)
The 2023 Black Ferns XV selection had a strong 2024 scoring eight tries in eight games for her club Petone who won the Tia Passi Memorial Shield. She carried on that form in the FPC for Wellington with a team-leading seven tries.
Young, fast and dynamic Katui has scored 11 tries in 12 games for Wellington having scored nine in 14 for Hawke’s Bay. She featured in all six Poua matches last season and scored tries in half of those games.
Laura Bayfield (Matatu)
The lock or loose forward was the top tackler in the FPC with 165 in eight games. She was heroic for a young Canterbury side that grew enormously through the season. Bayfield is also powerful with the ball in hand, ranking in the top five for most carries, and adept in the air.
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Bayfield was inspirational in the 36-31 Premiership semi-final win over Counties Manukau and made a staggering 23 tackles in the narrow 10-7 defence of the JJ Stewart Trophy in Round 2 against Waikato.
Bayfield enlisted in the New Zealand Army in January 2017, after graduating from Mt Albert Grammar School in Auckland. In 2019, as a Second Lieutenant with 2nd Engineer Regiment, Bayfield was in Officer in Charge of a team of engineers involved in the construction of a Bailey bridge over the Waiho River in South Westland, after the original bridge was washed away by floodwaters.
Bayfield ranked inside the top ten for tackles made and lineouts won in Aupiki 2024.
Charlotte Va’afusaga (Matatu)
Otago made their fourth championship final after one of the most extraordinary comebacks in New Zealand provincial rugby history. On September 7 the Spirit were hammered 51-13 by Wellington in Dundien conceding the first of nine tries after two minutes and shortly afterwards losing midfield backs Te Atawhai Campbell and Keely Hill
Eight days later in the capital Otago won their championship semi-final 51-38 against the Pride. Fullback Charlotte Va’afusuaga was forced inwards to centre and the 17-year-old was remarkable, gaining 143 metres while beating 16 defenders, delivering 15 passes and scoring a try.
The St Hilda’s Collegiate student has been earmarked for great things already making a dozen appearances for Otago and scoring four tries. She was in the New Zealand Under 18 team that competed at the Global Youth Sevens in Auckland recently. Her father Erick Va’afusaga played 269 games for the Green Island and Taieri clubs.
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