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Newsroom
06-07-2025
- Sport
- Newsroom
A legend who captained NZ in three sports codes: Melissa Ruscoe
Melissa Ruscoe prides herself on knowing what's going on around her – a statement hard to argue with, the trailblazing sportswoman having captained her country in three different sporting codes. But even the former Football Fern and Black Fern was blown away when she was blindsided with a hefty honour having been named as Sporting Legends of Canterbury, joining 33 other sporting icons from the region to have been recognised since 2007. 'Receiving such an honour and knowing nothing about it – it was a complete surprise,' she says with a laugh. 'It's still very surreal.' An envelope on the kitchen bench of her Christchurch home read 'happy birthday Bruce' as wife Audrey conspired with friends and family to get the dual international to the special awards ceremony last month. Even arriving at the venue, Ruscoe still thought they were bound for a birthday party although it crossed her mind that the Bruce was having a 'really flash 60th'. 'Walking down the hall and there were all the Canterbury sporting legends on the wall, and I still didn't twig. It's only when I saw my Dad, a couple of mates and my sisters did I think that something's going on here.' In the spotlight at the awards night. Photo: Petra Mingneau Photography In a special moment, Ruscoe was recognised as one of two Sporting Legends at the Sport Canterbury awards ceremony alongside triathlon pioneer and world class coach, John Hellemans. As realisation sunk in about what was to be bestowed upon her, she sat quietly for the next half hour as she contemplated what to say to the crowd gathered. Weeks later and the former New Zealand captain in football, rugby and sevens is still lost for words. Receiving the award has however been an opportunity for Ruscoe – fondly nicknamed Fraggle during her playing career – to reminisce on a career where she holds the distinction of captaining her country in three codes. Those memories also show the 48-year-old just how far women's sport has come. Ruscoe after receiving the legends award. Photo: Petra Mingneau Photography 'I remember when girls weren't even allowed to play football,' she says. 'I had my parents defending me on the sideline when I was playing as a six-year-old when others were asking why they were letting their daughter play football. The thinking then was girls shouldn't be playing football let alone rugby.' Since then she has experienced first-hand the traction that women's sport in New Zealand has gained, and it really hit home when the country hosted the respective football, cricket and rugby World Cups in 2022 and 2023. 'It's come along in leaps and bounds. There's still a way to go in women's sport but it's on the improve.' Ruscoe from Federation six (Canterbury, Malborough and Nelson) beats the defence from Capital soccer (Wellington, Wairarapa and HorrowhenuaKapiti ), during the National womens soccer tournament in Auckland. The history books show that Ruscoe appeared in 23 internationals as a Football Fern (#77), scoring two goals, between 1994 and 2000 before switching codes to rugby where she proudly wore the jersey for the Black Ferns (#120) for 22 wins in as many Tests and helping the side to two World Cup victories. She also captained both teams and was named New Zealand Player of the Year in 1997 and New Zealand International Female Footballer of the Year in 2000, along with rugby accolades including the New Zealand Women's Player of the Year in 2005 and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to women's rugby. Ruscoe captained her third national team when leading the rugby Sevens for New Zealand at the World Cup qualifiers in 2009. What's not penned on pages of the sporting archives are the highs and lows she experienced as she had laced up in her rugby and footy boots. It started as that five-year-old on the sports fields in Inglewood where she was asked to fill in for a mate's team and fell in love with the round ball code. Oblivious to the rumblings going on off the pitch, Ruscoe was just being a kid playing a game with her mates and enjoying every minute of it. It wasn't until Ruscoe went to trial for an under-14 age-group team that she got her first taste of how far women's sport still had to go. 'The coach told my mum that I could trial, but he couldn't pick me because I was a girl.' With no other avenues to play the game she loved in her hometown of Inglewood, Ruscoe hopped on her bike and pedalled one-and-a-half hours each way to New Plymouth for training twice a week to play for a women's team, the New Plymouth Rangers. Her desire to play had been ignited years before but her commitment to stick with it was highlighted by those many hours on the 'nice country open road' biking to and from practice. It was a few years later, as a 16-year-old, when she made her first national under-20 camp and not long after, the shy teenager was invited to a Football Ferns camp. 'I can remember it well, I don't think I spoke to anyone the whole time I was there, being one of the youngest. I got an injury and didn't tell anyone. You just got on with it. I just wanted to play.' Surprisingly, Ruscoe struggles to recall her Football Ferns debut as a 17-year-old against Bulgaria in Madras in 1994 and is non-plussed about dates or statistics. But the friendships and memories are unforgettable, she says. 'Going to the USA and playing against the likes of Mia Hamm. I remember having to tackle her in the goal box at the John F. Kennedy Stadium in front of 30,000 people and just praying that you're not going to give a penalty,' Ruscoe recalls. 'What they did for women's football was awesome and to be playing against them. I remember just thinking 'these guys are rockets, they are next level'. 'The cultural experience while playing in India was a highlight – a worldly open your eyes kind of trip.' But as her career in football progressed, the frustrations with the sport – particularly in the women's arena – also started to mount. Ruscoe says the 'political side' and the lack of support for the women's game started to take its toll on her enjoyment of playing. When planned events were continually cancelled at the last minute or the widening gap between the support the women's game had here compared to their opponents, the midfielder turned centre-back began to question whether the enjoyment factor remained the same from when she first pulled on the famous Ferns' jersey. 'It just felt like you were getting let down,' she says. 'It got to the point where it felt like we were battling everything.' The continual disappointment played a major part in Ruscoe stepping away from football at the national level. Little did she know that it wasn't to be the end of her international sporting career. In a remarkable switch, Ruscoe again answered the call of a mate to fill in for a team, slipping onto the wing for the Waikato Māori team for half a game in 1998. 'Lo and behold it was because (former Black Fern) Vanessa Coutts couldn't get there until halftime and I was filling in for her. That's when I made a connection of women's rugby and Black Ferns and I've got the amazing Vanessa Coutts coming in to sub me off.' It still didn't light a fire for Ruscoe who, on moving south to Christchurch where she got her first job as a PE teacher at Hillmorton High School, went along to preseason training at Christchurch Rugby Club at the request of her former football team-mate Kelly Jarden. She was still playing football when she took the plunge into the oval ball code and managed her weekends with rugby on Saturday's and football on a Sunday. 'I had no idea about rugby apart from getting up at 3am with Dad to watch the All Blacks and having a milo, and cheese on toast. I just enjoyed the thought of playing something different.' Even after lacing up her rugby boots for club rugby in Christchurch, there had been no forward thought of playing for Canterbury or her country again. 'It was always, if I'm going to play then I'm going to be the best that I can be and I'll use whoever I can use to learn and train. It took me two and a half years and all of a sudden you're playing for Canterbury and not long after the Black Ferns.' Her debut in rugby's black jersey was in 2004 in the Churchill Cup tournament in Canada in a match which holds plenty of memories for the hard-nosed sportswoman. With 25 minutes left in their match against Canada, Ruscoe and Mel Ngatai prepared to enter the action and went through a rigorous warm-up with senior player Regina Sheck. 'Regina put us through our paces, but I remember getting on, being on our goal-line and the Number 7 from Canada running with the ball and fended me on the chest right on my sternum. It knocked the wind out of me, but I managed to hold onto her, a ruck happened, and we won the ball, and she didn't score.' Adrenaline kicked in and Ruscoe finished the game – her first of 22 Tests but perhaps a precursor to the influence she would have on the game with her rock-solid defence and leading by example. She played in two World Cups – playing a major role in both successful campaigns – and was named captain of the Black Ferns in 2007. Ruscoe received her national rugby cap from NZR President Bill Osborne in 2019 in Christchurch. Photo: AllAgain, the statistics aren't what Ruscoe takes away from her time in the sport. 'Obviously people jump to the success rate of the Black Ferns. And a lot of people will say this, but it is the friendships you make, it's the team and it was the culture we had and the value that we placed on doing what we did, representing our families, the country and the jersey and doing it proud,' she says quietly. It was a surprisingly quick switch in codes and one even she thinks will become rare as athletes are asked to specialise at a young age. The landscape has changed drastically since Ruscoe ran around as a youngster trying as many sports as she could. Now she couldn't imagine ever being able to schedule the fun on the sports field along with the countless trainings needed any time you pick up a new discipline. 'The opportunities are definitely there with a lot of sports to play but what comes with that is the two trainings that you've got to do with every sport you're playing. Yes, I might have played volleyball on Wednesday, basketball on a Friday and then football on a Saturday, but I didn't have six trainings to go along with those three games in a week. 'It's too much. Kids are dropping out of sport because we heap so much pressure on them. It just doesn't philosophically sit right with me and then throw in the actual workload on the body as it's developing and growing – it's mad,' she says. 'Playing with your friends and enjoying it has to be the line in the sand.' With her 14-year-old daughter, Lusia, well entrenched in the sporting scene, Ruscoe is wary of the landmines out there including 'pigeon holing' athletes too early. 'You look at kids who are 12 or 13 and they've got how many years to grow yet, but we're targeting them because they've developed slightly quicker than their peers,' she says. 'I think too often we're making kids trial to be in a team and we're not just saying 'grab your mates and just come along and play'. That competitiveness is coming in earlier and earlier.' She's not saying she wasn't 'competitive' in her youth but Ruscoe attributes her ability to be able to make the change from playing football to rugby down to her younger years on the sporting fields – the variety consolidating the 'fundamental skills you learn from a playing so many different sports'. 'That early specialisation, we've got to avoid that. You've only got to look back in history at all those who never made First XV sides or not started something til later, but they've played all these different sports as a young kid.' Her concerns roll into school sports as well, having taught at Hillmorton High School in Christchurch for 25 years and now the team leader of pastoral care and wellbeing in the senior school – Ruscoe has seen plenty of changes at schools in general. 'The pressure trying to get sporting trophies in your cabinet for your school so that you're seen as a better school. That wasn't obvious to me as I was playing but it's really obvious now,' she says. 'Particularly in that male space where we're treating secondary school players as if they're Super Rugby players and they're not yet – well they are, they're expected to train like that and not actually able to do other things in the arts or cultural space or play other sports because there's this pressure on them to play and train for the First XV. 'I don't think it's the right way to go.' Ruscoe holds aloft the trophy after the second test match between the New Zealand Black Ferns and the Australian Wallaroos at Porirua Park in 2007. Ruscoe, who was also assistant coach of the Canterbury women's team, now guides the boys' First XV at school and is working on growing the female playing numbers so they can enter a girls' team. For her, it's about community and she feels those connections could be fostered more through clubs which might also help stem the flow of children leaving sport at a young age. 'The clubs are all singing out for having more members and they've got the resources sitting there. I don't think you'd then see the drop off from sport when they leave school. Creating that pathway into club sport should be done earlier and it shouldn't be on the schools to do it.' It's a lofty wish-list but Ruscoe feels she is seeing talent starting to slip through the cracks and recognises the 'values' that playing sport can bring. 'You want the best for your kids – you want them to be happy and healthy and part of that is, particularly in New Zealand, is playing sport, being in a team and the social skills and interpersonal skills you learn are just valuable things that we need as human beings.' Retiring from sport was not a difficult choice for Ruscoe, one she made after New Zealand's Rugby World Cup victory in 2010 with her daughter Lusia arriving the following year. 'I've been fortunate to have gained so much from sport and it's humbling,' she says. 'I trained from about that age of 16 and it was pretty much training and playing international sport at that top level. Lots of people asked if I would miss it but it was pretty black and white for me. I remember my first week back at school after retiring and I could just go home afterwards….no training. It was a nice kind of weird.' That's not to say that playing sport is completely off the table and Ruscoe jokes about the lure of the bowling green with former White Ferns cricketer Haidee Tiffen. 'Haidee used to work with me, and we joked about picking up outdoor bowls, so who knows,' Ruscoe says with a laugh. 'But it would just be a couple of mates playing a game, right – just how it should be sometimes.'
RNZ News
24-06-2025
- Sport
- RNZ News
Football Fern signs with Phoenix to play professionally for first time
The Wellington Phoenix have helped make a goalkeeper's dream come true. Football Fern Victoria Esson has signed with the A-League club on a one season deal, allowing her to play professionally for the first time at home. Sports reporter Felicity Reid spoke to Lisa Owen. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
NZ Herald
07-05-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Auckland FC: Guillermo May named MVP after historic A-League football season
Francis De Vries won the members' vote for player of the year after his breakout A-League campaign. His defensive prowess and deadly left foot, which earned him a spot back in the men's national team, provided seven assists and two goals. Goalkeeper Alex Paulsen, who has played every minute so far on loan from English Premier League side AFC Bournemouth, was named the player's player of the season. The former Wellington Phoenix star had another rock-solid campaign between the sticks, keeping 12 clean sheets. On the night, Logan Rogerson was honoured for scoring the club's first-ever hat-trick in the Black Knights' 6-1 victory over the Wellington Phoenix in the third domestic derby. That hat-trick was initially awarded to fellow forward Neyder Moreno before league officials overturned the on-field referee's decision after Rogerson was seen deflecting the shot into the net. At the Phoenix's awards night on Tuesday, women's captain Annalie Longo and men's forward Kosta Barbarouses scooped the major accolades. The pair won the members' players of the year, media players of the year, players' players of the year and the sponsor's players of the year honours. Longo, the long-serving Football Fern who retired from the professional game after the women's final match, also collected the Lloyd Morrison Spirit of the Phoenix award for her leadership of the women's team. Both Phoenix sides missed qualification for their respective A-League playoffs, while minor premiers Auckland FC find out their semifinal opponents after the elimination finals on Saturday. Auckland FC's upcoming fixtures Away semifinal May 17: Auckland FC v (lowest-ranked elimination final winner), Australia Home semifinal May 24: Auckland FC v (lowest-ranked elimination final winner), Go Media Stadium, 6pm Grand final Bonnie Jansen Football Fever podcast, and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.
