Sarah Hirini

Sarah Hirini MNZM (née Goss; born 9 December 1992) is a New Zealand women's rugby union player. She has played fifteen-a-side and seven-a-side rugby union, as a member of the New Zealand women's national rugby sevens team and New Zealand women's national rugby union team. Hirini was captain of the New Zealand Women's Sevens team that won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and back-to-back gold medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. During her time with the team they won the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series in 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2016–17, 2018–19, 2019–20 and 2022–23 as well as the Sevens league title for the 2023-24 season. To date she has played the most games for the team.

She was also a member of the fifteen-a-side 2017 and 2021 New Zealand Rugby World Cup winning squads.

Hirini was born on 9 December 1992 to Ronnie and Alan Goss. Her sister Rachael Rakatau also plays rugby and played for the Manawatū Cyclones in the Farah Palmer Cup championship in 2021.

Her father Alan was a champion shearer who won a Golden Shears title in the 1985 intermediate shearing final. Her mother Ronnie was a master wool handler, winning 53 open finals, including the 2008 Golden Shears open title, as well as competing in the New Zealand open championships finals in Te Kuiti in 1999 and 2003, in the Golden Shears open final six times, the 2014 world championships in Ireland, and represented New Zealand in ten trans-Tasman wool handling test matches. She grew up in a sports-loving household in the Oroua Valley, just out of Feilding. Her secondary school education was undertaken at Feilding High School, where she boarded.

When she was young Hirini competed in shearing contests alongside her brother Simon. After leaving high school having obtained a scholarship she commenced full time studies at Massey University, undertaking a Bachelor of Arts in Māori and sports science. However following selection for the national Sevens team, for the next eight years she completed her studies part-time, graduating with a degree in Maori studies.

At secondary school she initially played field hockey, but began playing rugby in 2006 at the age of 13 after she accompanied some friends who were attending rugby tryouts. "I thought it'd be good fitness for my hockey and also, if I did one more sport I didn't have to go to homework class after school."

She progressed to playing for the Manawatu Secondary School Girls team from 2007 to 2010, and it was while she was captain in 2010, that they won the regional competition without any points scored against them. She also played for the Hurricanes Secondary School Girls team in 2008.

At the end of her secondary education she was so passionate about rugby that she wanted to play it full time, but with no obvious professional career path for women in rugby, she continued played it for the Feilding Old Boys Oroua Club as an amateur. Among the representative teams she played for, was Manawatu in the Women's Provincial Championship in 2010 and 2011 and the Aotearoa Māori sevens team also in 2010 and 2011.