Sarah Hirini aims to be ready for a “gold medal” as she commits to a fourth Olympic campaign with the Black Ferns Sevens.
A legendary leader, who won everything there is to win in the sport, including the captaincy New Zealand to two gold and one silver medals, she signed a new two-year contract with New Zealand Rugby, leading to the LA Olympics.
The deal will make her the longest professional female player in New Zealand rugby history. Having signed her first contract in 2012, by the time it expires in 2028, she will have been in the Black Ferns Sevens for more than half her life. This time he will be doing it with baby Masaru. Born in May while Hirini and her husband Conor were living in Japan, his name means “victory”.
As she prepares for her comeback, Hirini calls it “bonus time.”
“I’ve done everything I’ve ever dreamed of, so to be able to go back now would be a dream,” she said. RugbyPass. “Giving birth and seeing other athletes come back to their sport is extremely inspiring, so it would be amazing if I could win another World Series title and then go to another Olympics and win a fourth Olympic medal. Whatever happens now, I’ll be extremely pleased.”
While a Black Ferns Sevens squad without Hirini seems almost unthinkable, her return was never a foregone conclusion. In fact, after the Paris Olympics, she didn’t think she would continue another four-year cycle.
“I still needed a bit more after Paris. Obviously when I was playing ACL, I didn’t think I played enough to finish and I still felt really good, but I also didn’t think I was going to commit again for four full years.”
Hirini played Japan 2025 and was looking forward to returning to the New Zealand line-up for the 2026 season, when the coaches first mooted the idea of extending him further.
“We wanted kids for a long time but it just wasn’t happening, so I thought, oh yeah, why not? But then between the break after Japan and coming back (to training in NZ), I ended up getting pregnant so obviously everything changed. I wanted to fully commit to making sure everything went well with the pregnancy, but there were still talks.”
The new contract arrived the day she went into labor.
“It had to be worked on! Conor was still signed to coach in Japan so there was a lot of talk about how it was going to work, and I don’t know if Masaru changed how we felt, but I think when we had him, my body felt good and I had Conor’s support so here we are; here we go again.”
Conor has put his coaching career in Japan on hold for now and the family returned to New Zealand last month. Hirini returned to training for a few weeks with some modifications to her program along with fellow new moms Michaela Brake and Shiray Kaka.
She highly praised the support that everyone gave them.
“A big motivation to come back after Masaru is the amount of support I’ve had from New Zealand Rugby as a whole and the Black Fern Sevens team and staff. There’s been a pelvic floor specialist during pregnancy, a lactation consultant, a dietician who specializes in mum’s health and then all the great people we already have in our environment – who have helped me come back. because they’ve given me so much.”
However, Hirini reveals a serious case of jitters on his first day back with the team.
“I was super, super nervous and I told the girls that,” she said. “Having been out for so long, there were a few new girls that I didn’t know very well, but I still wanted to show that I knew things and didn’t want to feel like I was behind.”
She loved the first few weeks before, but Hirini says she also came to the second group. A core of regulars are on various other adventures – Jazmin Felix-Hotham is in Ultimate Sevens, Alena Saili and Maia Davis are playing Test rugby, Stacey Waaka has been in rugby league and Theresa Fitzpatrick has also become a new mum – meaning there’s a new vibe to the squad.
“The banter in the locker room is a lot different than it used to be, but that’s what I love as well. I think these young girls coming up, they’re almost like a different species, so just trying to work around that and feel their energy and see how excited they are. It’s going to be exciting to watch them hopefully debut this year at World Se.”
She also returns to a team that, after months of barely putting a foot wrong, collapsed at the most critical moments last season, losing the final two events and the HSBC SVNS World Championship to arch-rivals Australia. Hirini aims to return for HSBC SVNS Singapore, the third leg of the series in late January, wanting to be realistic about where her body is and what she can add to the side.
“I don’t just want to come back and be the 12th person on the team. I’m competitive, I want to start… I don’t just want to be ready, I want to be ready for a gold medal.”
A raw 21-year-old when she first stepped into the Black Ferns Sevens captaincy, the lead in each of Hirini’s three previous Olympic campaigns came with a period of mental, physical or personal turmoil. Yet there is no hint of staleness or uncertainty about what lies ahead, instead there are signs of the same strength of character that saw her through the tough times and an even stronger sense of commitment and duty to the game she loves. Hirini knows that rugby week changes.
“It frustrates me a lot that it’s gotten to the point where some unions don’t want to invest in their sevens programs and things feel like they’re sitting on a knife’s edge. This game has raised me and all my teammates as people and given us tremendous opportunities. I loved my time in the fifteens, but I know that sevens has become better because of me.”
Despite the absolute anomaly of never winning World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year, Hirini’s legacy as the game’s greatest player of all time, male or female, sevens or fifteens, is indisputable regardless of what happens in the next and final two years of her career.
“I know I’ll be super nervous when I line up in the tunnel for the first time, but I’m thinking about how it’s going to feel and visualizing myself standing on the Olympic podium again, this time with Masaru in the audience,” she said. “All I ever wanted was to play for New Zealand but now I have another life, I want to make my time away from it worthwhile and I know I’m good enough to come back.”
This last act may be extra time, but there’s no mistaking Sarah Hirney’s drive and determination.