Jorja Miller commits to New Zealand Rugby, Black Ferns Sevens until 2029

Thursday, 23 July 2026

ANALYSIS: When New Zealand Rugby stumbled upon a talented tyro from Timaru, little did they know just what sort of prized possession they suddenly had in their grasp.

The year after the All Blacks suffered their ignominious 2007 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal exit, a four-year-old by the name of Jorja Miller, giving all sorts of boys a run for their money on the frosty fields of South Canterbury, was the future gift to the game the governing body never knew they needed.

The following year, the International Olympic Committee agreed (by a whopping 81 votes to eight) to include rugby sevens in the 2016 Olympics, proving the catalyst for the Black Ferns Sevens team to be born, with a ‘Go for Gold’ campaign launched to attract athletes from anywhere and everywhere.

Miller was at intermediate school at the time of that Rio Games and when the teacher asked the students to draw someone they idolised, it was Portia Woodman-Wickliffe which appeared on the young rugby-lover’s page.

Fast-forward 10 years and it’s now her, with the distinctive long blonde hair and pink scrunchies, that are being sketched (or now AI-generated) by girls, not to mention boys, around the country, as she becomes one of the biggest household names, one shouted by budding youngsters in the backyard.

The just-concluded Fifa World Cup was a reminder of how football is a team game but very much has the huge individual stars and brands ‒ think Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé, Haaland, Kane, Yamal ‒ inside it.

Rugby is not so akin. A far more conservative, nobody’s-bigger-than-the-team kind of mentality, where everybody’s on-field roles are so position-specific that it also helps lend itself towards that philosophy.

Yet in Miller, who on Thursday was announced as having re-signed through till the end of 2029, New Zealand Rugby have about as genuine a superstar as they have since Jonah Lomu took over the world on the stroke of professionalism in the mid-90’s.

The 22-year-old is literally the golden girl that has fallen into their lap, and whose marketing value is still so under-utilised but has the real potential to be a driving force for the sport into the future.

That should be especially important for a women’s game that, despite the hoopla around the home World Cup win in 2022, has not undertaken the sort of hoped-for lift-off since.

Yes, Miller will be focusing her energy on sevens, but that should not preclude her being New Zealand’s poster girl for rugby, men or women.

After all, of all New Zealand Rugby’s teams in black, it is the Black Ferns Sevens which are the most consistently successful, and who actually compete on that grandest of stages, at the Olympics, where the magic Miller’s promotion at Los Angeles 2028 could go off the charts.

For a player who gave an early insight into her ruthless, determined mindset when first arriving on the scene with the Black Ferns Sevens just out of high school and being quizzed by the coaches about why she wanted to be there, answering with: “Because I want to change the game of sevens”, it’s ridiculous to think where her ceiling is, and what sort of size her trophy cabinet at home may have to extend to.

After becoming the second-youngest recipient (behind Lomu) of the Kelvin R Tremain Memorial Player of the Year trophy at the 2024 New Zealand Rugby Awards, havig led her country to their second successive Olympic gold medal, Miller has collected back-to-back World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Year gongs.

While her sensational mix of speed, vision, work over the ball and tenacious tackling already sets her apart, it’s the fact she is also such a player for the big moments, a ‘give-me-the-ball’-type operator who team-mates get an extra lift from and who has now not coincidentally won countless player-of-the-match awards in finals, amongst her 118 appearances (and 111 tries) for the Black Ferns Sevens.

Having then also made a wonderfully easy transition to the 15-player code at last year’s World Cup, playing as an openside flanker but as a genuine hybrid who could roam and make an impact everywhere, it remains the great unknown if the Black Ferns’ semifinal loss to Canada could have been different had the magic Miller not been out injured. She is that influential, and was duly back and ripping it up in the third/fourth playoff win over France.

While the LA Olympics remain Miller’s clear focus, there is still plenty to eye up in 15s, too, with next year’s historic British and Irish Lions series a likely attraction, before the 2029 World Cup in Australia.

When she takes a breath after that she will be at the ripe old age of… just 25, with a whole heap of years ahead to play alongside some of those very school kids she is now an inspirational force for.