The birth of a star: Santo Taumata - from Te Puke to the Black Ferns

Many New Zealand towns have their claims to fame.

Take Tirau in the central north island, known for a giant corrugated sheep, or Bulls in the lower north where the local cop is the “consta-bull” and things are said to be “unbelieve-a-bull”. Taihape is gumboot town, Cromwell the home of stone fruit, while Gore is famous for having a big brown trout as its town monument.

Then there’s Te Puke, famed as the kiwifruit capital and definitely NOT pronounced like you’re having a vomit. With a population of about 10,000 Te Puke has produced four All Blacks over the years – two in the 1950s and 1960s and more Tanerau Latimer and Nathan Harris.

Black Fern Kendra Reynolds also hails from the Western Bay of Plenty town, as does a younger team-mate who’s already put her name in lights and, after the best part of two years out of the game, is ready to do so again.

To say Santo Taumata burst onto the scene is an understatement. Picking her for a Test debut against Australia in 2022 in her first year out of high school and only three years after taking up the game, then Black Ferns coach Wayne Smith said of the 19-year-old tight head prop “We might just see the birth of a star.” The Professor is rarely wrong and once again he’d found a gem.

Sports journalists love a bolter, a player who comes from nowhere into the national side. Taumata was that in 2022 when she was thrust into the spotlight at a home World Cup. She played all but one game in New Zealand’s campaign, endearing herself to the nation’s media with her wide-eyed take on life as a professional rugby player, playing in a home World Cup and how many tickets she needed for her family to attend matches. But she also felt the full glare of what it’s like when things don’t quite go to plan.

Even now the penalty in the semi-final against France gives Taumata, and indeed Kiwi supporters, the heebie-jeebies. With a minute to play and one point in it, one of the youngest in the New Zealand side had to accept her medicine in the white-hot cauldron of Eden Park when she was yellow carded for a high tackle, conceding the penalty just to the right of the posts. Caroline Drouin, one of the best kickers in the game, pushed it wide, New Zealand held on and Taumata breathed an almighty sigh of relief.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND - NOVEMBER 05: Match referee Joy gives Neville Santo Taumata of New Zealand a yellow card during Rugby World Cup 2021 Semifinal match between New Zealand and France at Eden Park on November 05, 2022, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters - World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)

Thankfully she can laugh about it now.

“I knew straight away when the ref went to the TMO that it was going to be a yellow. I was pretty stressed and then I couldn’t fit properly in the plastic sin bin chair, the camera was in my face and I was saying my prayers for her [Drouin] to miss,” Taumata reflects. “Both me and Muzz [fellow front rower Krystal Murray] apologised to the team cos she had done this crazy kick, and we were both a bit sheepish.”

As they say, the rest is history and for Taumata that World Cup genuinely feels like something from a different life. She hasn’t played for New Zealand since the final against England, in fact, she’s barely played at all.

Taumata broke her left hand in pre-season in 2023, requiring surgery to insert plates and screws, therefore missing the Chiefs Manawa’s Super Rugby Aupiki campaign. Upon her return she ruptured her ACL in club rugby, ruling her out for the best part of a year, stymieing the rapid trajectory of the front rower.

Taumata’s return to play for Bay of Plenty in the 2024 Farah Palmer Cup was also delayed due to some Achilles pain as her body relearned how to handle the rugby load before she eventually took the field in late August.

“The first game back when I came off the bench, I was quite nervous. I just remember my dad and coaches telling me, like, just go out there and enjoy the game, don’t try to impress, this is your first game back,” she says. “I think FPC was a really good comp to return to because there wasn’t too much pressure like there would be in Aupiki but there was a lot of learning and I looked really fresh after two years out of the game,” she laughs.

While she might have looked like a rugby rookie all over again, Taumata says the biggest positive was that she had no issues with any of her injuries.

“My knee felt really good, but my lungs didn’t. It was definitely more the fitness of scrummaging, hitting rucks and tackling again.”

Taumata credits her two villages with helping her back on the field and getting her through the mental toll of rehabbing, training alone and not being able to play.

The beauty of small-town New Zealand means a person of Taumata’s status can have direct influence, particularly on youth. With extra time on her hands and an extended period at home, she got stuck in with her community helping out with Te Puke Intermediate’s Pasifika groups and volunteering for her church. She says it all helped give her a bit of perspective.

“I’ve grown as a person more than a player and really worked on myself outside of rugby. I’ve learned to love myself and understand that things happen and I’ve been quite peaceful about it all,” she says.

The rugby village also rallied. Perhaps knowing that a young player rehabbing alone at home can easily slip through the cracks, Black Ferns legend Renee Woodman-Wickliffe coached Taumata in a series of boxing sessions while then Chiefs coach Crystal Murray invited her to pre-season camps to help her stay connected with the group. Close friends Luka Connor and Tanya Kalounivale were valuable support.

Immensely strong, quick off the ground and a good scrummager for such a young prop, Taumata is one of a handful of New Zealand front rowers who’ve been sidelined with long-term injury and will return in Super Rugby Aupiki just in time to stake a claim for RWC 2025, where it will be all hands on deck if New Zealand is to defend its title.

“I caught up with [Black Ferns assistant coach] Tony Christie and we compared some World Cup footage to one of my comeback games and it was an eye-opener. I didn’t realise or remember how physical I was back at the World Cup, and actually how good I was. They want me to be physical and mobile and that showed me if I could do that back then, I can definitely be better now."

As the 2025 Aupiki season nears, Taumata concedes she was a bit anxious about being back to training with the Chiefs and in the Waikato-based Black Ferns performance hub effectively for the first time. She says it’s hard to meet the standards after being out for so long, yet as a nationally contracted player, there are high expectations. 

Taumata and fellow Chiefs and Black Ferns prop Awhina Tangen-Wainohu, who’s also been out for a lengthy spell with a neck injury, are each other’s measuring stick.

“Even though I played at the World Cup a lot has changed so some of it’s quite new and there’s been some big, intense days. Awhi and I have spoken about how important this season is with the Chiefs to show everyone we have been doing the work while we’ve been injured and we both really want to put our best foot forward to hopefully be in that World Cup squad again.”

For a young player whose career started in a hurry, Santo Taumata says two years out of the game means she’s learned to be patient and disciplined. 2025 marks a re-set for a player “destined to be a star”, who’s giving a small Kiwi town multiple reasons to be proud.