Hamilton Girls' High School rugby team lives by one motto - Publicly humble, privately proud. Stuff.co.nz followed their journey to the national finals in Palmerston North.

For the last two months we have closely followed the Hamilton Girls' High School's first XV rugby team, which has won a world title in Japan. Over the weekend, we have published a series of videos, stories and pictures from their season, culminating in a feature documentary.

Be publicly humble and privately proud.

It's a simple message which has guided Hamilton Girls' High School's rugby team to world and national championships in the past two years.

Their most recent success was their national title win on Sunday afternoon, in which they defeated Southland Girls' High School 27-5 in Palmerston North.

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* The hard grafter - Terina Te Tamaki

Partners in coaching and in life, Crystal and Brent Kaua have been instrumental in Girls' High's success over the past three years in particular, along with strength and conditioning coach Zara Powell.

But success on the field is nowhere near as important as success off it, and it's there that this special rugby team is making the biggest mark.

Last year, 14 members of the national championship winning Girls' High first-XV left the school, a time that can be quite challenging for young people.

Each and every player has done something with their lives.



Terina Te Tamaki, receiving treatment after injuring her ankle in a match against Feilding High School earlier this season (Photo: Mike Scott/Fairfax NZ)

"Last year our school leavers who left, every single one of them this year, they're in full paid employment, they're at university or they're over the other side of the world, contracted playing rugby," Crystal Kaua said.

"Given the statistics of our girls in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, that shouldn't be the case - but it is.

"Rugby is providing them life skills and life tools that will set them up no matter what they do."

A good school does help. Hamilton Girls' High School is a decile 6 school with more than 1600 students, and in 2014, 85.3 per cent of Year 13 students passed.

For several of those school leavers, school wouldn't have been on the cards if it weren't for the rugby team.

The culture built over time has transformed the lives of many Girls' High rugby players, and will continue to do so in years to come.

"We started off and it was nice and basic," Brent Kaua said of the team culture.

"If you were late to training and didn't let us know - we still do it today actually - you've got to stand in the middle of the group and sing a song, and it's got to be at least 30 seconds long.

"You soon find that you don't want to be late. You're accountable if that happens, and it's brought the girls together."

Who fancies singing in front of 20 other girls at 6.30am on a Monday?

Girls' High rugby players go to early morning fitness sessions, after school trainings and games, and if they're not there and don't have an explanation before hand it's time to get the vocal chords ready.

Culture is what holds this group together from year to year, and it needs cultivating and rebuilding with each change in the playing group.

It helps keep young players involved with the team when their elders leave, turning them into the senior members and leaders.

Vitally, it's a major player in keeping girls at school.

"I think it's taken them a bit of time, but if you put the time and dedication into something, for this instance, rugby, great things can happen," Brent said.

"People do say that we've got great talent at this school, but these are girls coming from ordinary backgrounds and the girls that have been there before them have set a great standard. These girls aspire to be like them.

"It's teaching them hard work. They aren't just talented rugby players, they've been taught how to work hard and hopefully when they finish school it doesn't apply just to rugby. If they apply it to anything they can be great.

"A lot of our best girls I think would have potentially gone off the rails, finished school early. Some were drinking, doing drugs, things like that, and [rugby] really just gave them direction."



Hamilton Girls' High co-coach Crystal Kaua (Photo: Rebekah Parsons-King)

Crystal knows a thing or two about what those girls were going through.

As a teenager she was drinking, taking drugs and generally heading nowhere fast.

Sport pulled her out of a bad situation, and now she is ensuring no girls under her coaching care go down the wrong track.

"Sport was the thing that was the difference for me between staying in school and not," Crystal said.

"At 13, 14, 15, I was the same as a lot of them. Drugs. Drinking. Suspended. Fighting.

"Rugby and touch and sport was the choice I made. That became my drug of choice, and the way to get out of the head space and so for a lot of them I think sport is their out and it's a much better option."

Possibly the best thing is the expectation the coaches put on the girls.



Isla Norman-Bell, 15, has a few things in common with her idol, Usain Bolt. (Photo: Rebekah Parsons-King)

It doesn't matter where you come from, Crystal expects the absolute best from each member of her squad.

Expectations aren't that the girls will go on to become Black Ferns or New Zealand Sevens players. The expectation is that these girls will be good people and live the values taught in the team.

"I have really high expectations. I have a big belief that we set our bar too low with our kids, especially in New Zealand.

"We say you can't do this, you can't do that, and we set the bar low and that's where they aim for, so I've always said if we set the bar ridiculously high and have this expectation for kids to be amazing and to not just be great in sport but great in school and humble and hard working. If that's the expectation then they live up to that.

"The fact that they will finish school, and they won't do drugs and won't drink during our campaigns, that's the expectation and we don't shy away from that.

"I think we need to set our bar so much higher in New Zealand in terms of what our young people are capable of. If we aim low, that's where they're gonna be. If we tell them that's all they're capable of, that's where they're gonna be.

"Our girls are great people, but it's the same across the country. If we had a bunch more people setting ridiculously high standards and giving the kids tools to achieve then we could use sport as a vehicle to change people's lives."

Crystal was lucky growing up.

She had a mother who told her every day without fail that she could achieve anything she wanted.

Growing up with that sort of positive reinforcement flowing through your head makes you not only believe it, but act it out.

The Kaua's now own their own gym in Hamilton, alongside coaching partner Powell.

Given her background, going to a decile one school, having a mother with bi-polar, being a Maori and one of three kids, Crystal should never have been in a position to own a business, let alone a thriving new gym.

By passing on pure positivity to her young charges, Girls' High rugby players grow up knowing they are capable of anything they put their mind to.

Captain Terina Te Tamaki wants to own her own early childcare centre, as well as represent New Zealand in sevens at the 2020 Olympic Games.

Others want to be PE teachers, airline pilots, zoologists, doctors, nurses. Some also want to be rugby players, and the bulk of these girls will go on to achieve those goals.

"It's not about becoming a Black Fern," Crystal said.

"Some of them will go on to be great Black Ferns and great New Zealand Sevens players, but all of them will be good people who are grounded and know how to work hard and know how to dream big."

To think joining a sport could set you up for life.

Of course, as one of the players' parents mentioned, this is a story some of the girls don't want told.

It's not that they aren't proud or their efforts and what they are doing. Far from it.

They're more worried about living up to their team motto.

Publicly humble, privately proud.