I have never really  leaned into sport.

I grew up in a very typical Otago household that  followed rugby, cricket and netball. My mum was great at netball and I remember the cold Saturday mornings at Marlow Park watching her leap across the court  playing an aggressive centre position.

Rugby was a bit of a religion in the whānau for reasons of history, whakapapa and a natural love for the game, and cricket was there in the house, screaming at the New Zealand team on TV, in their beige uniforms, smashing a six in a one-day match.

I played netball because I had to and my brother played rugby and cricket and that was about it. Maybe it’s the slightly introvert-spectrum part of me that enjoyed swimming and ballet, the more  individual pursuits, but I never fully connected with the team sports. I think I understood the comradery, the joint fight and the fellowship but I didn’t experience it in sport. The closest I came to a team connection was in kapa haka.

My partner is Sports Billy and, let me tell you, a whole new world of learning has opened up to me — that old cliche “you never stop learning” is definitely a thing. He has dedicated his life to loving sport, he knows it like palmistry, and I watch his brain tick over with the performance and tactical data of teams, unions, leagues, individuals and all pursuits, and he overflows with sports history from all corners.

I love how much he loves it, and how good he is at being that knowledge holder and flow master of a crowd in a sports arena. It’s epic and it has sparked something in me, new learning and a humility, I guess, about my ignorance and my judgment of sports and sports culture in general.

So, here I am, learning, and yesterday I had the privilege of being shown through the Sydney Roosters’ Allianz Stadium (Sydney Football Stadium) which holds  more than 40,000 people.  It is impressive. Thank you, Jonesy, for showing us through — another sports knowledge holder from down south.

Now, there was a lot to take in and I will admit some of the most incredible looking trophies were lost on me. The sheer space was amazing and there was a good energy among the people working there. But it was the history of the region, the players and the symbolism of hard work and hard grind that spoke to me.

The Sydney Roosters, whose history stretches back to 1908, come from a working class area. They certainly look affluent now but their Eastern Suburbs roots are in  working-class docklands such as  Paddington and Darlinghurst. These are generations of immigrant whānau who built the area’s foundations. You clocked the grit in the history. The “sandstone country” the roosters stem from has indigenous roots and the convicts transported to Australia quarried and carved the stone for colonial structures by hand. There were convict stone-cutting gangs and master masons and this is the bedrock of Sydney. As we walked into one of their training rooms, the sandstone sat there in the corner as a badge of honour, a symbol of the blood, sweat and tears. That spoke to me.

Bringing a new team into that back-history and developing unity, deep connection and drive was galvanised with this whakapapa. I could see that.

Then on the wall were   the values  of the 2026 team. The team comes together at the beginning of the year and over a few months they land on three values. The beauty of this is that it is nuanced and aligned to each particular team and they also design the definitions with each value.

There were a couple of things that spoke to me straight away about the values and that was that I could see my sons in them — championship mindset, hunters and brotherhood.

You don’t have to over analyse these to understand their intent. The drive and the commitment to a shared goal is obvious in the mindset and brotherhood.

The hunter value stands out to me and hones in on a core indigenous survivor focus of being purposeful and relentless in pursuit of what was once survival of the fittest, and not just for the individual but for the whānau and hapū.

These values translate beautifully into the coming together of a team for one purpose, and that is to win.

I was impressed by the way in which the values were pivotal to their existence and commitment to their league and the way in which they landed them, with all of their history and DNA, from land to people.

So, I am going to a watch the Sydney Roosters play tonight. Think I might get me some Roosters gear too.

To my diehard Wahs whanaunga, don’t hold that against me. Sometimes you have to go away to come back, to better understand.