Growing up in Kaitaia playing rugby against the boys is one of the reasons Black Ferns prop and Northland Kauri captain Krystal Murray has been able to make it into the team for the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

Murray reckons playing against the boys helped make her the player she is today and that, along with a stint in rugby league when she represented the Kiwi Ferns at a rugby league world cup, are some of the reasons she’ll be taking the field on Saturday in Whangārei against Scotland.

Last week Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis, who was principal of Kaitaia Intermediate School when Murray attended, said she had put fear into the boys she played against at school.

”I learned a lot from them,” Murray said in Whangarei yesterday, “and developed more skill sets from playing with the boys and I appreciate that time.”

Those skills led to her inclusion in the Kiwi Ferns’ 2017 Rugby League World Cup and now she’s become a dual international by representing the rugby Black Ferns at yet another world cup.

Murray said her league skills help with her rugby game, but union is far more technical than league so she has to learn a lot more too, with prop being one of the most technical positions in the game.

She’s doing fine in the role though and scored a try when she came on against Wales last weekend.

She hoped that having the Women’s Rugby World Cup in her home province – and that of fellow Black Fern Portia Woodman – would inspire the next generation of women rugby players.

”It’s amazing [to have games in Whangārei]. I’m representing my people and hopefully this will show the next generation that they can achieve if they want to and if they put their mind to it and work hard. You can achieve your dreams, you can make it on that path if you are from Northland so I’m happy girls are seeing that pathway is there for them, if they want it.”

Murray said it was exciting to be walking around Whangārei and seeing so many people engaged with the Rugby World Cup, and one of her jobs was letting the rest of the team know where the best places to go in the district were.

”The locals are really getting behind us and supporting us.”

Murray said making it into the Black Ferns is just the start and she acknowledges some challenges to stay in the squad.

”I still live in Kaitaia and one [challenge] is not being able to be around the [training] hubs and the other players. I’m training a lot solo.”

But, she said, captaining the Northland Kauri in the Farah Palmer Cup helped her a lot as she was able to train hard with them and her fellow players were always keen to do extra training with her.

”Just playing for my home region has done a lot for me personally,” she said.

Black Ferns assistant coach Wesley Clarke said the team is looking forward to the game against Scotland on Saturday and had been working on some aspects of play this week to improve further.

The players had looked at their defence and one issue was that the team had started slowly in its first two games, so sorting that out was being worked on.

Clarke acknowledged that England, with a 27-game winning streak, and France were two of the biggest rivals for the cup this year.

”But we’ve still got stuff in our game to fix and we’re focusing on that. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves.”

On Saturday Wales play Australia, the Black Ferns meet Scotland and Fiji face France at the Northland Events Centre in Whangārei.