Lynley Tierney-Mani has been a part of many firsts in women’s rugby league, being selected in the first women’s Auckland Vulcans team in 1994 and the inaugural Kiwi Ferns team in 1995. This season, Tierney-Mani joined the ARL Judicial Committee as the first female member, bringing a unique perspective to the role.

Answering the call from Pat Carthy, Tierney-Mani jumped on board and took on the opportunity to get involved with rugby league again.

“I was always a bit of a cheeky player, especially with the referees and stuff, but never enough to get myself in the absolute... you know … so I thought this would be a really good challenge and an opportunity for me to start jumping back in and giving back” Tierney-Mani said on the opportunity.

While the opportunity allowed Tierney-Mani to re-engage with some old friends, she also understood that she brought something new and different to the role.

“I do bring something different, not only am I a woman, I am a proud Māori wahine, so I also bring an understanding and different point of view from a cultural background. I’ve been a more recent player, more in touch with the grassroots, and understand just how intimidating that room can be.”

The role itself, as Tierney-Mani explained, it’s not about punishing them for things that they have done the heat of the moment, they already know what they have done, It’s about helping them understand and own their actions, to look at things differently is a key part of developing players in preparation for the future on and off the field.

“As soon as you say to them that you’re representing your jersey and representing your club, people start thinking differently, and they actually go back to their clubs and talk about it. It gets a much better buy in from the ground up. “

“They’re playing our game because they have a passion for our game and it’s just re-instilling that back in them, reminding them of that and coming to that conclusion before they walk out the door.”

While this is the most recent influence that Lynley Tierney-Mani is having, her influence on the game and career started at “the original Warriors”, of course referring to the Mount Wellington club.

“I absolutely love that club to bits and forever will. I was forever loyal to them, no matter how many teams tried to coerce me, even if we’re at the bottom of the table, I didn’t care because I saw a future for a lot of our people that were playing and coming in to play, that they could change their lifestyle, just the same as I had been able to through the sport of rugby league.”

From there, Tierney-Mani paved her way to the top, selected in the first Auckland Vulcans team in 1994, then first Auckland Blue team in 1995 where she represented Auckland at Nationals in Nelson, and earnt a spot in the first ever Kiwi Ferns team.

Throughout the next few years, Tierney-Mani represented Auckland, Auckland Māori, Kiwi Ferns, and New Zealand Māori.  This included a spot in the inaugural Women’s Rugby League World Cup, hosted in London, where the Kiwi Ferns were victorious, winning the final 26-4 over Great Britain & Ireland.

During that tour, Tierney-Mani spoke to her coach at the time, Michael Rawiri, about getting into serious coaching as she held various coaching roles with junior teams and as a part of the Premier Men’s team at Mt Wellington.

Tierney-Mani ended up jumping at the challenge taking on the Auckland coaching role in 2001 and as a player coach for the Auckland Māori until 2004, when she hung up her playing boots. The Auckland women’s side went undefeated over those next ten years with her guiding the way.

Looking forward to the next challenge, Tierney-Mani picked up the Kiwi Ferns role in 2010, taking them through into the 2013 World Cup, making the Final but falling short against a strong Australian team. Following that it was time to take a step back and shift the focus to whānau.

“I stayed in the background, mentoring coaches, jumping in on J.E.T.S camps, taking a few training sessions with Club, Fox and under-20s teams to help them rebuild the culture within their team from the grassroots and get the whole club involved.”

Inaugural Kiwi Ferns coach, Janie Thomson encouraged the girls in the Kiwi Ferns to be involved in the game in different ways and giving back was an integral part of being a Kiwi Fern. This is a message that has stuck with Tierney-Mani.

“This is how we will continue to grow, is by educating our players as they’re in the game and have them thinking about the future of our game. Then when they’re looking to exit, they’re also looking to what they can be giving back while they’re playing and what they can be giving back after.”

“We all sat our level one coaching and that’s how it all began. Those that weren’t interested in coaching, sat the level one referees, management or training. It was based on the Australian model where professional players would be expected to be out and coaching a junior’s team within their club.”

“We started putting some of that in progress where we were going out and we were either coaching in our clubs or were coaching in the schools. Leah Witehira took that to the next level and has blazed the way with some amazing groundwork in the schools around Auckland”

The women’s game has developed a lot since the beginning of Tierney-Mani’s playing days and is thriving in recent years.

A large part of this is giving back to the grassroots level and creating opportunities for rangatahi coming through, as Tierney-Mani has demonstrated throughout her career and continues to demonstrate today.

Article added: Thursday 28 July 2022