New Zealand netball’s captivating, tattooed elder Erena Mikaere carries ancestors in her legs
How is one-Test Silver Fern Erena Mikaere still starring in the ANZ Championship as its eldest player? Some wonder if it’s because of her enormous traditional Māori tattoo, writes SUZANNE McFADDEN.
Erena Mikaere likes to think her tÄ«puna – her ancestors – are holding her up on the netball court, now that she has her life story inked down her legs.
Mikaere bears the puhoro, a traditional Māori tattoo design, from her lower back down to her Achilles, encircling both legs. It represents speed, swiftness and agility – all traits that Mikaere has demonstrated in her long netball career.
It was a painstaking, and painful, process that took 23 days to complete.
And some wonder whether it’s the reason why the captivating Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic defender, the most senior player in the ANZ Premiership at 35, has been playing some of her best netball at this end of her career.
“Someone asked me if I was playing with my tīpuna, now that my legs are tattooed, which is such a cool way to think about it,” says the player who’s affectionately known as Aunty E.
“Then someone else noticed my knees weren’t taped up this season. I said, ‘Yeah, that’s all in my head; I’ve moved forward’. And they were like, ‘Oh, we thought your ancestors were looking after your legs now’.”
Maybe they’re right. Or maybe Mikaere (of Te Arawa and Tūhourangi descent) is at that stage of her career where she’s simply enjoying netball and the people around her (not that she’s lost any of her competitiveness). This year, for the first time, the one-Test Silver Fern will play on the same club side as her 14-year-old daughter, Bileigh.
Whatever the reason, Mikaere remains one of the most athletic players in New Zealand’s premier league, sitting high on the lists of defensive rebounds and deflections. She was MVP in Magic’s latest win over Steel on Monday night, and her partnership with Georgia Takarangi is now instinctive.
The first New Zealander to play in an Australian franchise when she turned out for the West Coast Fever in the 2015 ANZ Championship, Mikaere’s desire to play for New Zealand again is now waning. But she’s driven to bring through the next generation of Silver Ferns and pave a pathway for her daughter.
“Someone told me I’ve aged like fine wine. I’ll take that,” Mikaere laughs. But she’s not convinced she’s at the top of her game. “As an athlete, you always want to be better.”
The tattooing of Mikaere’s puhoro began a year ago. “We spread it out over a long time, so it allowed me to have the tattoo, heal, play netball, then have a little more done,” she says.
“It took 23 days in total, and most days were six hours long. There was just myself and Jules, the beautiful moko artist.”
That artist is Julie Paama-Pengelly (Ngāi Te Rangi), a highly regarded tā moko practitioner based at Mt Maunganui, who also designed the traditional heart at the centre of the Magic playing dress.
“Jules and I have a great connection. When I was 16, I got a white ink tā moko across my back, shoulder to shoulder, done by her ex-husband,” Mikaere says. “Jules had just done her first puhoro on a female and I told my parents, ‘I’d love that one day but I don’t know if I could handle the pain’.”
Then Paama-Pengelly was looking for someone to tattoo to showcase at an indigenous art expo in Vancouver. So Mikaere offered up her legs.
“It’s so beautiful,” Mikaere says of the design. “It’s all about my whakapapa [lineage]. Before we designed it, Jules and I discussed who I am, my aspirations, my whānau [family], my tipuna, my mana wāhine – all the amazing women before me.
“She found a beautiful legend about two kererū [wood pigeons] who were a sign to say my tīpuna were safe, and they’re incorporated in the design.”
Fierce and unrelenting on court, Mikaere admits the discomfort of the needle was intense. “I fainted one day when I arrived there – my body knew this was the place where I’d been in pain,” she says.
A life-size poster of Mikaere, showing the full extent of her puhoro, was on display at the expo in Canada. “My niece saw it and said, ‘Aunty, you’re naked in Vancouver!’ And my dad replied, ‘No she’s not. She’s wearing her puhoro. She’s fully clothed.”
Mikaere helped design the special dress worn by the Magic in their 25th anniversary celebrations earlier this month. It bore the names of all 123 Magic players and was based on the dress worn when the Magic won the ANZ Championship in 2012. Mikaere is the only current Magic player who was part of that historic victory, when the Magic became the only New Zealand franchise to claim trans-Tasman honours.
“I put my old 2012 dress on the other day and I realised what a scrawny little child I was back then,” she laughs.
Mikaere also led the haka after the game, as a tribute to the legacy players there. “It’s a beautiful haka we were gifted by Whakaaro, a leadership course we did four years ago. We now pass it on to the next generation of Magic players. The culture and the love in the Magic run deep,” she says.
She’s had two stints at the Magic which bookend her elite netball career so far. Straight out of Rotorua Lakes High School, Mikaere was offered a training partner contract. For years, she had to bide her time behind Magic defenders, and Silver Ferns centurions, Casey Kopua and Leana de Bruin.
She spent time a season with the Southern Steel in 2014, before crossing the Tasman to the Fever for two years, and was then reunited with Magic coach Dame Noeline Taurua at the Sunshine Coast Lightning for two winning SSN seasons.
“Playing in Australia made me grow up outside of netball. It opened my eyes to new people and places. And it gave me the mongrel to train hard,” she says.
“Fever gave me the opportunity, they saw something in me that others maybe didn’t. I really loved the people like Khao Watts. I could have easily stayed.”
In 2019, she returned to New Zealand to play for the Northern Mystics. But her main reason for coming home was to be close to her daughter.
Mikaere had moved to Perth in 2015 with her partner and their daughter. But when her parents’ relationship dissolved, Bileigh (pronounced Billie) returned to Rotorua to live with her grandparents.
Now Mikaere lives in Rotorua, five houses away from her parents, Brenda and Kerry. Bileigh moves between the two homes.
At 14, Bileigh is only a couple of centimetres shorter than her mother’s 192cm height. And yes, she plays netball – but she was a late starter to the sport.
“She didn’t like it at first. Netball was always taking her mum away,” Mikaere says. “She was playing basketball, then her friendship group switched, so I encouraged her to give netball a try. And she loves it. She loves the girls she’s playing with.”
Bileigh is also good at it. A shooter, she plays four days a week, for school, club and a representative side. This year, she’ll play in the same club team with her mum for Whakarewarewa.
“I try to get to as many of her games as I can, because her face just lights up when she sees me,” Mikaere says. “She’s a good kid.”
Mikaere doesn’t feel like the elder stateswoman of the Magic, though. This season, she was buddied up with the youngest team member, training partner and NZ U21 player Kate Taylor. “We were like two matching pieces of a puzzle,” Mikaere laughs. “I was like, ‘How are we the same person?’ and one of the girls said, ‘Because you still act like you’re her age!’
“I think the issue is I was raised like the baby of my family.” Even though she was in the middle of an elder sister and two younger brothers.
Mikaere’s vibrant, outgoing personality off-court has made her a TV star – hosting E News, her regular post-match interview with fellow premiership players in Sky’s Netball Zone show.
“I enjoy people having a chat, a smile and a laugh. It’s a little bit about netball but a little bit about who you are off the court, something I know about you that others don’t,” she says.
“People say I look grumpy on court, but then I come off and I’m all, ‘Hello guys, what’s happening?’” She often gets players singing, like Stars midcourter Mila Reuelu-Buchanan. “I know she’s a bubbly, beautiful person, and I want to show you that.”
Mikaere is just as comfortable behind the camera. In her spare time, she’s a photographer, and also a talented artist.
Still on top of her game, Mikaere doesn’t hint at retirement anytime soon. So what drives her to keep playing?
“Most definitely it’s the people,” she says. “I think about those years when we weren’t winning at the Magic. Tough times, when I could have finished up and gone teaching [she’s a qualified teacher]. But Ameliaranne [Ekenasio] said, ‘No you’ve got to carry on’.
“I don’t know if I’d still be there if MJ [Mary-Jane Araroa] wasn’t the coach. I love watching players like Georgie Edgecombe and GT [Georgia Takarangi] coming along. Cob [Claire O’Brien] makes me laugh. They give you a purpose to be there.
“I’m also competitive and I love being in a team. People who’ve finished say ‘Play as long as you can, because it’s not the same outside of it, you don’t have that team’. These are the people I trust and believe and love.”
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As for the Silver Ferns, Mikaere says she will be “OK” if she doesn’t add to the single Test she played in the black dress against England in 2019. She sees herself in another role now.
“Before the last World Cup, I said to Meels [Ekenasio]: ‘I can help with whatever you want. If you need an extra runner, if you need to do a yo-yo with someone, if you need to be defended, just let me know and I’ll be there’,” she says.
“My thing is making those girls in the Ferns better, because it makes the future of our netball better. And I want to see more pathways for my daughter.”
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