Travelling down the main street, it is clear Riverton stands firmly behind Black Fern prop-cum-local legend Amy Rule by the hundreds of posters in store fronts, on fences and in windows.
Rule, who grew up in the town, will anchor the All Black scrum tonight when the Black Ferns take on England in Auckland in the Rugby World Cup final.
Her mother, Christine Rule, said it was pretty exciting to see how much support was being shown for her daughter in the town.
"She loves it, but she is pretty ... well, you don’t see her much on Instagram. She’s just doing her job.
"We've just been to the quarter and the semi, which was pretty special to us because they lost to France last year, so they’ve beaten them and then the week before, Amy got her first try for the World Cup, so that was pretty cool."
She has been speaking to her daughter every day during the cup.
In the Longwood Retirement Village and Carehome, where Rule worked as a caretaker alongside many of her family members, the communal living area has been adorned in black and white balloons along with one of her old Black Ferns jerseys.
"She was a lovely girl, always loved by the residents, hard working ... so probably we saw the kind, sweet, caring Amy, but she probably had to develop a bit more aggression to get where she is now."
Perhaps the most heavily postered building in town was Aparima College, where principal Aloma Williams, Rule’s former rugby coach, said she felt a real sense of pride and excitement.
"I'm not sure how she'll feel about that, knowing how she's very humble. Yeah, she'll be quite overwhelmed by that, but I’d say at the same time she should own it, she deserves it."
"We have a girls’ team here at Aparima College, and four of them came running up to me saying, ‘this is going to be us in the next few years’. So just to know that you're inspiring young girls, in your hometown, that's got to be a good thing."
Pupils Georgia White, Piper Neylon and Milyn Armstrong, who play in the school’s development team, said it was cool to see someone from their college play at such a high level.
The 22-year-old tighthead prop first started playing the game in 2017, in her last year at school, and quickly rose through the ranks, playing her first test in November last year.
