Kiwi connection strong for England hooker
One member of England’s formidable forwards was a Black Ferns triallist in her teens and remains good mates with star New Zealand loose forward Sarah Hirini.
Born in England, Amy Cokayne captained the Feilding High School first XV team that won 53 matches in a row under the tutelage of Rob Jones and has become one of the world’s best hookers – with England’s Red Roses, however, and not the Black Ferns.
She starts in tomorrow night’s Rugby World Cup final when England are favourites to beat the Black Ferns at Eden Park.
The 26-year-old lived in New Zealand between the ages of nine and 17 and was called up for the Black Ferns’ wider training squad, at just 16, after impressing for Manawatu¯ in the Farah Palmer Cup and the Feilding Old Boys roua club. ¯O
‘‘It was a shock. International rugby was so far away from where I was,’’ Cokayne said.
‘‘It closed that gap a lot and made me think seriously about it which, at 16, I probably wasn’t ready to do.’’
Black Ferns assistant coach Wes Clarke, who was coaching around Manawatu¯ at the time, remembers she was special.
‘‘I remember taking her to a coaching course. She was teaching the men about toes pointing out versus toes pointing in,’’ Clarke said this week.
‘‘They were all saying ‘who’s this girl?’ She was great.
‘‘Unfortunately, she was lost to us. We probably had a chance to keep her if we were better at the time.’’
Her family emigrated to New
Zealand when her father transferred from the UK’s Royal Air Force to the Royal New Zealand Air Force, based in Ohakea near Bulls, in a career she would follow once returning to the UK, earning the rank of flight lieutenant while continuing to transition to full-time rugby.
It’s why she stands to attention, separately from teammates, for England’s national anthem.
‘‘It’s what you do when you’re in the military,’’ she said.
The Black Ferns trial in Auckland, however, was one of the catalysts for her rugby career to take off after first playing the game as a five-year-old with Bristol’s Cleve Rugby Club.
‘‘My older brother used to play rugby. I was dragged down to his trainings when I was a bit of a nuisance, getting in the way of his age group,’’ Cokayne said.
‘‘They booted me to my age group. I’ve played ever since.’’
She was also a talented javelin thrower at high school in Manawatu¯ but committed to rugby. ‘‘I tried to get involved in as many sports as possible because it normally meant you got a day off school,’’ she said.
Her family are fanatical for sport, too, and especially football, naming Cokayne after their beloved Premier League club, Aston Villa. The first letter in each of her names, Amy Victoria Fiona Cokayne, is the same as the club’s initials.
Cokayne says Jones, who was also a coaching mentor for Hirini and opposing Black Ferns hooker Georgia Ponsonby, instilled in them the drive to work hard and be ‘‘super professional’’, as a player as well as a person.
‘‘If your boots weren’t clean, it didn’t matter who you were, you weren’t playing. We trained really hard and had good fitness programmes from the age of 13,’’ Cokayne said.
Cokayne returned to England when she was 17 and hasn’t looked back. She was part of the English team which lost the 2017 Rugby World Cup final to the Black Ferns in Belfast.
Hirini and Cokayne’s families remain close, although neither of the players will catch up until after Saturday night.
‘‘She’s awesome,’’ Hirini said of Cokayne this week.
‘‘Other than [Georgia Ponsonby], she’s probably one of the best hookers in the world at the moment. There will be a few cheeky things from her at the bottom of the ruck.’’