A rugby original is found and honoured by her pioneering club

The mystery began in 2019. Keryn Martin and Logan Ainsworth were preparing the walls of the Paremata-Plimmerton Rugby clubrooms for a significant refurbishment when they removed eight framed jerseys.

Seven of them bore the inscription “Presented by K Gray” and another black jersey was simply entitled “New Zealand Women’s Rugby” with no other detail.

This raised the question: Who wore the jerseys? And how could their stories inspire those at the club?

So began the ‘Ken Gray-Ericka Rere Legacy Project’ to acknowledge two champion Paremata-Plimmerton players and the whenua they played on.

Gray was a legendary All Blacks prop whose family have a long history in the area.  The women’s jersey belonged to Rere, who was until then an unknown figure to Martin and Ainsworth.

There is no photo of the 1990 Paremata-Plimmerton women’s team on the walls of the club, and yet the side captained by Rere, an original Black Fern, won the Fleurs Cocktail Bar Trophy as Wellington senior champions. Coached by husband John Rere and Frank Ngatai, Paremata-Plimmerton won all 13 matches with 18 of the 25 registered players playing rugby for the first time.

The same season, the first Wellington women’s representative team was selected. Alongside seven teammates, Rere (nee Ratu) was chosen to play Auckland at Athletic Park in July.

In August, Paremata-Plimmerton went to the groundbreaking World Rugby Festival in Christchurch. In a first tournament of its kind, Paremata-Plimmerton finished second in both the opening day friendship tournament and the club tournament.

Then a New Zealand XV featuring four Paremata-Plimmerton players, including Rere, was chosen for international fixtures. The New Zealand XV beat Holland 56-0, the Soviet Union 8-0, USA 9-3, and a World XV 12-4.

The World XV match was essentially a trial for the first Rugby World Cup in 1991. Rere was singled out for special praise by New Zealand coach Laurie O’Reilly and was subsequently acknowledged as Paremata-Plimmerton player of the year. 

New Zealand and World Rugby refused to sanction a women’s World Cup, so players had to fundraise $5000 each for a UK tour that included warm-up matches in North America.

While Rere found the funds to attend, regrettably Paremata-Plimmerton teammates Fiona Johnson, Lise Baker and No’o Tekeu could not meet the commitment. 

At what was later sanctioned as a Rugby World Cup, Rere started in all three of New Zealand’s matches as they made the semifinals, where they were beaten by eventual winners the USA. 

Rere wore No.1 in all three matches of the Rugby World Cup and gifted her jersey to Paremata-Plimmerton life member Bob Smith for his advocacy of women’s rugby and support in raising funds. Smith gifted the jersey to the club, and after the club’s search all these years later he confirmed that was how it ended up on the wall.

Te Papa textile conservator Rachael Collinge has been employed to clean, reframe, and represent that jersey (as well as Gray’s), ensuring they don’t decay and remain long-term at the club. Fundraising money has taken four years. It costs just under $5000 to repackage each jersey, $1200 for cleaning and $2600 for framing.

Rere’s jersey will be presented at a reunion dinner for the 1990 team at the club this Saturday.

“It’s humbling to have this acknowledgment from the club,” Rere says. “I was supposed to be in the Cook Islands this week celebrating a family milestone, but how could I miss this?

“I can’t wait to see who turns up and what they’re doing. We had a strong team with a special connection.”

Rere says she was lucky to go to the World Cup. “My aunty Penny Clayton who lives in Australia came over, and said, ‘Here you go bub. We are so proud of you’ and handed me a wad of cash.  My younger sister Jenny who had good employment in Whakatāne was able to come up with the $5000 for herself to travel as a team support person,” she says.

“One day I turned up to the Porirua shopping mall to visit every shop to ask for donations through gifts or money for a batons up fundraiser that my Aunty Jo Hames [grandma of All Black Kane Hames] was organising. After the third shop, I was intercepted by security and told I was forbidden unless I had a permit. 

“When I explained, I was fundraising to go to the inaugural Women’s Rugby World Cup in England the mall management gave me the permit and also $500 was donated from the mayor’s fund. It was incredible. Even the Tawa Rugby Club held a fundraiser for me. We used to laugh as all their players looked like models.”

“Memories of that first World Cup were the biggest buzz. So many memories come flooding back when I look at the worn-out photo albums.

 “I heard some of the girls slept on hotel floors; we had sung merrily with the Welsh, and I saw things I never believed I would. Perhaps the funniest thing that happened was when a few girls caught Debbie Chase busking in a London subway to help pay her way.

“Our team theme song was Show No Mercy by Mark Williams. The girls would play this to get inspiration.”

In 1992, Rere was selected for New Zealand again when they beat an Auckland XV, 36-0, in their first official game at Eden Park.

The following year, she was selected for a New Zealand XV that beat a Possibles XV, 34-12, at the Police College. Rere was a leading contender for the 1994 Rugby World Cup, but she decided her international ambitions were “done and dusted”, instead devoting herself to becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.

Rere recalls breaking the news to coach Laurie O’Reilly.

“When I told him he put his hand on my shoulder and said it was a good decision and he wouldn’t stand in my way. Other people were angry with my decision, but having Laurie’s support meant a lot,” she says. “I was sad when I heard he had passed away.

“Why did I choose a life of faith? I was struggling in my personal life. I started studying the Bible which showed me to focus on what’s important.”

Much of Rere’s struggle had to do with the trauma of losing her dad when she was 14. “He was shot in a hunting incident in the Ureweras and I bottled up all the emotion from the worst time of my life,” she says.

“Dad was the reason I got into rugby. He didn’t care about all the naysayers and encouraged me to take every opportunity. We grew up on a dairy farm and I’m told when he went out to work on the farm, from the age of two, I would do a haka until he came back and took me with him. I wanted to be on the tractor and help him feed the cows.

“Revelation 21:4 is something I recite every day. It says, ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will sorrow nor pain nor outcry be anymore, the former things have passed away’.”

Rere worked for Aotea Finance as a lending officer for a dozen years followed by a stint as an HR coordinator for Red Badge Security. Today she works in hospitality and is often a duty manager at Warriors home games at Go Media Stadium and rugby games at Eden Park.

Much of Rere’s life is built around family. She’s been married to John since December 1981, and among her 13 grandchildren are two sets of twins, which run in the family.

Rere’s youngest daughter Talitha Litara Cumi is named after a Paremata-Plimmerton teammate.

“Litara Lua was a wonderful person. She was the first female Tokelauan firefighter in New Zealand. Her parents lived next door to my husband’s parents’ family home on Aberfeldy Street, Porirua, so we grew up together. She was into fitness and played rugby.

“She played in the forwards and backs, and I’m convinced if she played more, she could have become a Black Fern. At Christmas time 1998, she went diving, collecting kai moana for her family. She didn’t surface; it was heartbreaking.”

Rere predicts Talitha’s twins will be Black Ferns: “They have a Fijian Dad, tall and strong.”  

She attended the Black Ferns’ Rugby World Cup final win against England at Eden Park in 2022, after Regina Sheck organised a reunion of past Black Ferns, who were invited into the Barbarians lounge.

“I think the growth of the Black Ferns might be the biggest reason this happened,” Rere says. “It’s a little bit overwhelming.”

The entire 2024 Paremata-Plimmerton team will attend the reunion. In a rebuilding season, Paremata-Plimmerton won the second division Izzy Ford Cup. Izzy Ford was a Black Fern who briefly played for Paremata-Plimmerton before making her name at Northern United.

“I think the growth of the Black Ferns might be the biggest reason this happened. It’s a little bit overwhelming,” Rere said.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunities Paremata-Plimmerton gave me. It’s going to be interesting to meet some of the players in the women’s team today and share our experiences together.”