Rising star Stacey Niao (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) has been selected to play for Canterbury in the Farah Palmer Cup. This is a huge change for Stacey who has spent most of her career playing volleyball both in New Zealand and in the United States.
Raised in Kawerau, Stacey Niao spent several years in the USA, where she gained a bachelor’s degree at Illinois State University on a volleyball scholarship. “It’s a huge step up. College sport over there is just next level. We played in a stadium that seated over 10,000 people and was used for just volleyball and basketball alone,” she admits. A career highlight across the ocean for Niao was when their team won the Missouri Valley Conference. They also made it to the second round of the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Tournament, something ISU had not achieved since the 1990s.
After college, she stayed in San Diego for a few more years before returning to New Zealand to attain a Master of Science (Human Performance) degree at Wintec.
Niao’s introduction to playing rugby was almost by chance. During her master’s studies, she worked with the Wintec rugby players, observing their strength and conditioning programmes.
“My master’s study was based around youth athlete development. I started in the master’s programme not really knowing what I wanted to do, just knowing I had a strong interest in strength and conditioning. I went along to watch rugby players’ fitness and see how they move. I ended up joining in at training and then I played a few games for them during my studies,” she says.
After moving to Christchurch to work at the University of Canterbury (UC), running their high-performance centre sports academy, Stacey started playing club rugby with the University team and this year made the Canterbury squad for the Farah Palmer Cup, which is the highest-level domestic women’s rugby union competition in New Zealand. This year the team are pursuing their fifth straight title!
“It’s pretty massive. There’s a bunch of Black Ferns in the squad. We’ve got Chelsea Bremner, Kendra Cocksedge – for me to play alongside them is pretty cool,” says Niao.
“If you really enjoy something, stay around that area. I just love sports, I enjoy all aspects of it, and I don’t silo myself to one sport, or one thing.”