Stacey Waaka

BIOGRAPHY

Black Fern #183

Stacey Fluhler (nee Waaka), hails from Ruatoki, a sleepy village in the eastern Bay of Plenty.

In 2011 as a 15-year-old she suffered severe leg lacerations when a logging truck ploughed into the back of her school bus, shunting it into a paddock; leaving children bleeding and broken. She helped some of the injured children off the bus, including her niece and nephew, before walking to a nearby childcare centre to phone her mum. Twenty-eight children were taken to hospitals when emergency services arrived.

Then in Year 11 at high school, Fluhler had just taken up rugby following in the footsteps of her friends, and recalls fearfully asking her mother if she would ever play sports again. Remarkably, less than four years later she was a Black Fern and went on to become a sevens and fifteens World Champion.

After scoring a record 11 tries in a season for Waikato in 2014 she was called into the Black Ferns for the 2015 Super Series in Canada. The midfield back played all three matches in the tournament, won by the Black Ferns.

Fluhler has repeatedly overcome the odds undergoing a shoulder reconstruction and recovering from a meniscus tear in the knee and a perilunate bone dislocation in the wrist to stay on the field.

In 2016 she was a silver medalist with the Black Ferns Sevens at the Rio Olympics.

She went one better in 2017, the glue that held the Black Ferns midfield together during the regaining of the World Cup fifteens title. She scored tries in the first two group games and played 154 of the 160 minutes in the semi-final and final.

Fluhler has specialised in sevens since 2018. She was in the World Cup winning team in San Francisco and scored 10 tries in helping New Zealand claim 2018-19 World Series honours. In the shortened 2019-20 World Series she was the leading try scorer, being selected in four out of five Dream Teams and picking up two Impact Player of the Tournament titles.

She bagged two tries in the 2019 Dubai Sevens final which New Zealand won 17-14 against Canada. On January 26, 2020, in Hamilton Fluhler was the player of the final as New Zealand won a World Series title on home soil for the first time. A week later in the Sydney Sevens she scored four tries in the semi-final alone as New Zealand extended their win streak to 24 successive matches. She was named Black Ferns Sevens player of the year.

In 2020 she also returned to Waikato and played a starring role in Waikato’s run to the Farah Palmer Cup final. She scored eight tries in seven games as the Mooloos enjoyed their best ever season. Waikato topped the competitive North division with rare wins against Auckland and Counties to set up a final with Canterbury. Despite leading most of the match, Waikato was pipped in injury time 8-7. She has scored a record 31 tries in 26 matches for Waikato.

Perhaps her greatest achievement was in July 2021 when she won an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo. It was the 50th time New Zealand had won gold at the Olympic Games, a feat that took 101 years to reach. New Zealand first attended the Olympics in 1920, with Darcy Hadfield winning a bronze in the single sculls. Waaka was integral to New Zealand’s success with Joseph Pearson of Stuff reporting:

“Her beaming grin was not what Fiji or France wanted to see with her respective tries in the semifinal and the final. She was effective off the bench and not starting on Saturday only demonstrated New Zealand’s outrageously good depth.”

The Fiji semi-final was decided in extra time with Gayle Broughton scoring the winning try. Fluhler stole the kick-off after a late change in strategy by captain Sarah Hirini sent the ball in the opposite direction Fiji expected. There are just 17 women, including the likes of Barbara Kendall, Dame Valerie Adams and Lisa Carrington to win more than two Olympic medals for New Zealand.

Sport runs in the family. Her brother Beaudein Waaka has been part of the All Blacks Sevens and has represented Taranaki in the NPC while Bronson represented New Zealand Universities in rugby and Bay of Plenty, Waikato and New Zealand Maori in tour. Her father Simon played for Thames Valley in 1981 and for Victoria against the touring All Blacks in 1992. All Black Arthur Stone, Maori All Black Otere Black, All Blacks Sevens representative Ngarohi McGarvey-Black and Kiwi’s league internationals Phillip and Robert Orchard are all cousins.

Stacey has also represented New Zealand in touch rugby and at provincial level in netball, hockey and athletics.

Fluhler has a Bachelor of Sport and Leisure Studies from Waikato University and has written children's books.

Profile by Adam Julian