First female club captain

Sacha Nicolson, who is the new club captain of Zingari-Richmond, at the club this week. Photo:...
Sacha Nicolson, who is the new club captain of Zingari-Richmond, at the club this week. Photo: Linda Robertson.
Sacha Nicolson has been a fixture up at Montecillo for many a year.

She has played for Zingari-Richmond for more than two decades, coached, helped, managed  and also worked behind the bar.

Now she has taken the next step and become the club captain for the club up the hill.

She is believed to be the first female club captain of any rugby club in Dunedin.

Nicolson (41) said the opportunity came up and she decided to give it a crack.

She said  previous club captain Stephen Baughan was looking to move on and have more family time.

He would still do some of the paperwork and she would handle other roles and look after teams and after-match functions.

"I’m looking forward to the role. Just getting more involved and I suppose proving the skeptics wrong," she said.

"I’m sure there are a few doubters out there but there are a hell of a lot of people who are supporting me."

She did not play rugby as a child and her first game was for the club in 1990 as a 15-year-old while still at Kaikorai Valley High School.

"I started out as flanker and then went to first five-eighth for years. Then as I got older and had children I ended up in the front row."

She played a couple of years at Kaikorai near the end of her playing days as Zingari-Richmond did not have a team but she always stayed loyal to the colours. All up she played more than 200 games of women’s rugby.

Her husband Duncan had also played to a high level at the club and coached teams.

The mother of two, and grandmother of one, said the club meant a lot to her and she said the work of people like Murray Collie and Baughan kept the club going.

The club has entered into an association with the Mornington Football Club and the College netball club over the past couple of years and it was going great. The football team was now having some trainings at Montecillo and enjoying the clubrooms after not having a fixed base for many years.Nicolson worked at Lion, filling kegs, and said it was quite an honour to become  the first woman club captain in Dunedin.

"I think I was the first woman in the club to play 100 games and then the first one to play 200 games. So now to follow that and become the first woman in this sort of role is a bit of a buzz."

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