Mother, sister, sevens star
as a way to help her rugby.
‘‘In Auckland there were only three of us so it was hard to do rugby trainings, then you come here and there are 10 girls and we can do full scenario trainings.
‘‘I love it, but it’s difficult and hard because my support base is back up in Auckland, but we have a lot of support here too.
‘‘All of the girls and their partners all help out with the kids. Kelly [Brazier] and her partner like to take the kids for full days, Sundays, take them to the park, which is real cool.
‘‘Our families are the big ones. They often drive down to look after the girls, and at the moment it’s school holidays so the girls have gone up to Auckland to hang out with their aunty. They’re on their own little school holiday programme which is amazing because it means my partner can work and I can train.’’
Williams said her girls love the sevens team and knowing their mum is a sevens player. In fact, her eldest has set her sights on representing New Zealand as well, for now at least.
‘‘My eldest one, she’s six now, and she said the other day, ‘Mum, I want to be a rugby sevens player because you guys are all pretty and I love that you always have gold medals’.
‘‘So I said to her, ‘OK sweet, we’ll start doing some tackle practice’, so I’ve got the two girls running at each other in the lounge.
‘‘She also loves dancing, so she might not have her mind made up just yet. It’s crazy, but we’ll see.’’
New Zealand kick off their Sevens World Cup campaign at
6.50am tomorrow, playing Mexico. In an unusual format, the World Cup is a straight knockout, with the winning team progressing to the quarterfinals at 12.30pm.
The men’s format is the same, with New Zealand playing Russia or Hong Kong at 3.15pm tomorrow. Should they progress, they’ll play their quarterfinal at
11.16am on Sunday.
‘‘Straight away they threw the gold medal on the floor and said, ‘mum, can you come colour in with us’.’’
Niall Williams on her two young daughters