Georgia Ponsonby ready for ‘weird but funny’ reunion with Scottish club teammates

Black Ferns captain Georgia Ponsonby says she will be “friends off the field and enemies on it” with her former Trailfinders Women teammates this Saturday when she faces them at the Hive as New Zealand take on Scotland.

Ponsonby played the entire 2025/26 season in England’s Premiership Women’s Rugby for Trailfinders, becoming friends with Scotland’s Emma Wassell and skipper Rachel Malcolm. The hooker will also be playing international rugby in Scotland for the first time as the Black Ferns play the Scots in their own backyard for the first time.

The 26-year-old said: “I am very excited. I caught up with Wass for a coffee yesterday which was really nice. I made really good friendships with those two.

“It is so cool that I know players in the team on a personal level because historically between them and the Welsh, Irish and English girls I didn’t know any of them on a personal level at all.

“I’m very excited to see them on the field and play opposite them. It’ll be a bit weird but funny. Friends off the field and enemies on the field. It’ll be a good tussle with them.”

The tour New Zealand are currently on started with history as they played in South Africa against the Springboks for the first time. Ponsonby added she and the team are “excited” to add more history in Edinburgh this weekend.

“It’s epic, Scotland is a really cool place,” she said. “We all went out to Edinburgh yesterday for our day off. It’s such an epic city. It’s really cool to be here, I am excited to play at the Hive in front of some Scottish fans, very passionate people from what I have gathered. But it’s cool to be a part of history.

“This tour for us has been a little bit about that, obviously we did the same in South Africa. It will be very special and I think it will be very special for the Scottish girls as well.

“I think anywhere other than home is always new and exciting. Obviously we are here to play rugby but I guess the bonus of being able to travel the world and experience different cultures and food is always new and exciting. It adds to the gratitude of what we get to do and the places we get to see.”

Ponsonby is leading the team for the first time during this tour. While she has previously been in the leadership group she hasn’t officially had the captaincy title, which she says is a “huge honour”.

“It was a surprise,” Ponsonby said. “She [head coach Whitney Hansen] pulled me aside and told me before it got announced to the team. You go ‘are you sure? Me?’ but then reflecting back I have been in this team for six years. I am one of the more capped players as well. I guess with that eventually comes a responsibility to lead.”

She was named as one of two co-captains alongside Ruahei Demant but the first-five has since been ruled out with injury. Ponsonby says she is “devastated” for her teammate but that the change does “not massively” affect her own role as captain.

“It came as a shock,” she said. “Not only is she such an amazing player but she is an incredible leader in this group and someone we definitely lean on a lot. To lose someone like her and all of her experience, being the most capped player in our team, obviously a huge loss and very devastating for her.

“Thankfully it is not a long term injury, hopefully maybe like six weeks. Gutted for her as well. She wanted to be playing out there, awesome Test matches lined up. So yeah, devastated, huge loss.”

New Zealand will try to extend Hansen’s unbeaten record since being appointed the Black Ferns head coach last December. When asked about her boss, Ponsonby has nothing but praise for the 39-year-old.

She said: “She has been phenomenal. She is well respected, incredible in front of the group. The way she has connected the management team I think has been really cool.

“Just the programme that she is running, the vision that she has of where this group is going to go, the professionalism, the standards that she has brought in, the expectations, everything about this group with her in it is about going from good to great.

“She is pushing that every day in everything that we do which is really awesome and that is exactly what we want in our head coach. She is doing a great job.”

While Ponsonby will be reunited with friends from Trailfinders on the pitch on Saturday, she will not be playing alongside them next PWR season. She has returned to New Zealand with her eye on a historic tour next year.

She said: “I will play in our domestic competition again for the foreseeable future. The British & Irish Lions tour is next year so I definitely want to be putting my hand up for that and be a part of that because that will be very cool. Another historic moment to be a part of.”

Though she won’t be playing in the English top-flight, she is taking learnings from her time in it with her.

“Aside from the rugby aspect, it was a really cool reset and refresh for me,” she added. “Obviously I have been playing in New Zealand for a long time so just to get an overseas experience, off of the back of the World Cup, was really cool. It was really good timing.

“To get a taste of something different, a different rugby culture, meet new people, get a new view on rugby and the way people think about it. I took a lot from it, lots of learnings. But more importantly lots of friendships and memories and connections that were made were the highlight for me.”