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hey Runners only with dime Harley Runners only with dom Harvey and uh Hannah Wilkinson can I call you will key
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do I call you Hannah what do I you can Wilkie a lot of the time you know I feel like Wilkie is probably the
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domain and reservation of teammates exactly yeah so Hannah it is yeah uh Striker for the football Ferns and it's
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a position that you've had through your entire 20s yes yeah um started out on the national team
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2011 2010 2011 yeah and uh yeah I've been going ever since it's been incredible career 31 31 years of age
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uh 105 games for New Zealand sounds all right 27 goals yeah you're not a stat person are you I don't
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know yeah probably probably I don't know it's your podcast mate yeah I don't know uh yes I mean it
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all sounds correct so yeah and what 100th game for New Zealand at the Olympics awesome yeah uh that's not something you
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forget no what what happens when you're in uh the football Ferns and uh you you
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have your 100th I know like in the All Blacks very few people have done it but they get like a cap presentation yep so
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um I got a jersey my name when it was 100 um in a cap and uh you know had a big sort of Celebration with the team
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um and yeah it was just good to you know do a little speech and like you know it
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was it was really cool and even more special to do it at an Olympic Games so it's pretty awesome are you emotional at
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that time are you an emotional person with these sort of Milestones um yeah I think it gives you some time
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to reflect I guess um you know I don't really keep that very I didn't actually know it was my
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100th until I was told no you might actually get 100 games and I'm like oh no no way really so uh but yeah it was
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cool it was amazing to be able to reflect and and just be grateful that I was able to do that with two injuries as
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well major injuries was a pretty awesome thing to be able to achieve yeah major injuries um knee injuries we'll get into
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that there's so much to the Hannah Wilkinson story to get into um including not just the football but you
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just being like ridiculously good at whatever you put you put your mind to you've got songs on Spotify
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um you're an accomplished artist with a mural at uh Eden Park there's like so
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many oh um psychology student at Harvard as well but there's just so many feathers to your cap it's just
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ridiculous how can one person get so much talent that's not fear okay so um FIFA World Cup 2023 here in
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here how many how many World Cups have you been to prove is it two others three others three others so this is your
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fourth yeah so we have the previous three been uh first one was Germany um in 2011 and then
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uh Canada 2015 and then France 2019. right so what what does it mean having it in New Zealand because it's where
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were you when you heard the news when you heard the news about the announcement can you remember that I um
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I was actually with a couple of teammates I was with flee Anna lilongo and Erin Naylor in Auckland because we
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you know that we needed to be down there because it was obviously a big deal and
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we could actually win the the bid to host and um we had no sleep because we had to listen to it live and it was over
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in uh wherever FIFA was announcing at the time and um yeah they they said it was New Zealand and I couldn't get over
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I mean it was just the most amazing news and we spent their whole No Sleep media
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all day and just all of this uh all of these possibilities unfolding in our minds like at Eden Park like Opening
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match and and now we're here amazing because was New Zealand was this sort of
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like a candidate race or anything like was New Zealand on a short list or yeah I think it was yeah it was between us
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Japan and oh I can't remember now yeah a couple of other countries but I think it was Japan
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pulled out for some reason and it gave us a really good chance and um yeah we had to obviously co-host with
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Australia because we wouldn't we have the infrastructure we would never be able to do that alone so oh it's just
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incredible yeah because I'm uh I'm not really like a football person myself so
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I I do apologize in advance for any dumb questions that might come out um my football knowledge um is probably
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similar to Ted lasso on episode one season one that's about the extent of it
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that's um are we sort of underestimating as new zealanders how big this tournament is
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and do you think it's one of those things that we won't realize just the
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significance of it until it's right here completely yeah absolutely I think people are going to start to realize how
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big it is once the first games come and first few games are going to come and go
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um yeah there's just the entire world is going to be watching us that it's it's
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the most one of the most watched events in the world I think this world cup will
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be the biggest so it's actually going to be crazy people are not ready [ __ ] I can see like your eyes light up
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it's just amazing I mean I've been to several so it's it's an like an event
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unlike anything else and that's one of the most special I guess because of the
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proximity to family and absolutely yeah yeah I mean we're a team that always
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always the away team we are never at home you know we play overseas constantly I think most of us just
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barely play in New Zealand if that um you know not even barely any home games so
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um to bring it home and to actually have a home advantage and then to play in front of family and friends who helped
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you get to where you are is amazing absolutely incredible and how's New Zealand going to do uh like where are
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you expected to come well you know our goal so far as to you know make history and get out of a group and obviously go
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beyond you know um our grip is not too bad it's it's one of the better groups
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we've had in the past um and we can really compete with these teams and yeah we're going to really go
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for them we've been preparing for the last you know the last couple of months we've
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all been together in Camp and we've been working bloody hard and it's the longest
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time we've ever been together you know instead of rocking up to a tour with two
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trainings to figure out how to play together um yeah we're playing together for weeks
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and weeks at a time and it's been a real privilege so that's good but there's um
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there's quite a few people in there in the team in their 30s am I right yes so it's quite a quite a mature
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established team yeah well so I mean that in the respect that people that you've played with before and a lot over
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the years well traditionally we actually had a pretty consistent Squad um of the same players and lately now
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last kind of few years actually the teams go you know kind of gone through a little bit of a change with some a whole
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younger generation has come moved through into the squad and the original sort of
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key kind of group hasn't you know it's it's been a little bit of a process of figuring each other out at
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this point like a younger generation in an older sort of generation as well so that's
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along with a new coach do you have a comment oh I got it my dog for anyone that's listening to this
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rather than watching the video he is just like staring at you like sickeningly in love I know
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all right Striker yes yes yeah so that means you you get the goals how am I doing so far
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good um okay so let's talk about um we'll go right back so growing up you're from whangarei
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you're from camo or just whangarei just whangarei yeah why did I think you're
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from camo well I went to Karma High School in camo like you know football teams and stuff yeah but um yeah I'm
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kind of my I'm from sort of Kensington which is more and I mean it's not a very
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big place you could say I'm from come if you want um and you what what other sports did
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you play like I we established early on that you're very good at a number of
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things which we'll get into um were there other sports that you played that you excelled at when you
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were younger or um yeah I played a little bit of a little bit of rugby a little bit of uh
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like track I was I loved sort of sprinting and maybe some cross-country surfing I really enjoyed uh but football
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is the one that kind of really stuck for me I fell in love with it pretty quickly
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yeah because you had um two brothers who both played yeah so do you think that's
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what attracted you to football like you know I just followed them and we were naturally very competitive
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people so they both older brothers or are you the middle on the middle child yeah so one younger one older having an
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older brother that would help sharpen the pencil though I'd imagine when it comes to Sport and stuff yeah definitely
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I mean I think he lost interest pretty quickly my little brother um he carried on and loved it and then my dad started
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coaching and that's when I started to get pretty serious and yeah just keep going amazing and you even had a photo
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of um I heard you had a photo of uh Maya Jackman who's Maya Jackson oh yeah my
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Jackman is a New Zealand football Fern she's a legend of the game is that terrible that I that I don't know who
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Maya Jackson is it's terrible I'm going to teach you all about her now yeah yeah
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I'm I'm real sorry I I feel like I deserve to be educated so who is Maya
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Jackman and she's a she was one of the um kind of Front Runners for football
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ferns she's in uh or kind of earlier World Cups um like are we talking 80s or 90s 90s I
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believe um and she was a footballer that I looked up to quite a lot growing up like
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I had my yeah posted her on my wall and okay um I kind of managed to join the team
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kind of right as she was leaving I think and also your paths crossed yeah slightly I think I do remember some
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trainings with her it's got to be the most surreal pinch myself moment so yeah
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you're you're in the same team as this as this lady who you hit on your wall as
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a poster where did you hear the poster from where would you get a poster of Maya Jackman oh I mean that was that was
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the kind of female football icon growing up right there weren't many because you
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know growing up I was I was only kind of looking up at you know male players um because there wasn't much women's
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football at all yeah so Maya was quite a key sort of figure obviously the more serious that women's
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football became in New Zealand the more visibility we got um the more we got to know and look up
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to all of those past football fans yeah and then thankfully I ended up playing with a lot
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of them which was incredible and such an honor yeah dear dear fangirl hello do you
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manage to keep it pretty chill I mean I think I came in there kind of just with such a a desire tip all I wanted to do
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when I started to get really serious with football was to represent my country and so yeah all of these girls that I
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was looking up to and watching on TV I was starting to get to play alongside them and that was amazing and to be not
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just play alongside them but to be guided by them and coach for them with sex it's the I mean it's
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it's that sort of guidance has led me to become the player I am now yeah so so
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when you made the team you were like 17 years old right 17 I just turned 18 maybe I think when I
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made that Senior Team yeah the football fans I was yes 17. so how old was Maya then same age as
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what you are now the early 30s must be yeah I don't know I don't think so
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that's a huge age Gap isn't it I don't know if she's that old no no but I mean
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like like do you feel it now like when say a 17 or 18 year old comes into the team like from where you are now like in
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you oh yeah they're doing The Tick Tock dances are you like I'm too old for this
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[ __ ] yeah no it is I mean you start to see that and that's what we're experiencing at the moment as a squad
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and has been for the last few years is the um converging of the younger generation
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with the kind of veterans that we're in for so long I mean we're seeing Millie
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Clegg now as the 17 year old coming in and I'm like wow you are so young but
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you can see like you know the the future and it's exciting because she's a
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fantastic player yeah so so growing up in whangarei playing football in the I'm guessing the like
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the 90s early 2000s was there was there a girls team no no no way I played with boys until I was about 16. so you'll be
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playing a boys team or was it like called a mixed team and whether you're going to mix team there was usually just
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me but I had a couple of other girls okay maybe one or two others because I've had Sophie Divine on the podcast
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you know Sophie Devine yeah yeah and she is she a bit older than you maybe she's
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mid to late 30s I don't know I feel like yeah I'm not sure but she she talked
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about that uh yeah same situation as you played with Brothers growing up yeah um
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lots of fries brother chase you with a stump one day and then so she just had to plan the boys team
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and she she um shared a story on the podcast about how usually the other boys were okay but it was some of the parents
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were like quite weird about it she's got you you didn't sort of encounter any of
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that anything like that from either either I mean nothing that I knew of you know I think if anything it would be my
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parents at the fear of like you can't play with boys like it's gonna be too
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rough but in fact you know it meant that you could compete a little bit harder and push yourself that little bit more
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so I'm actually really grateful I got to play with boys and I think a lot of
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ferns that had similar upbringings would say the same did they did they have a rule in whangarei I know some parts of
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the country have this rule where um if you're a girl and you're playing in a boys team and you scored you got
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two points instead of one yeah like reflecting and looking back now do you think um yeah like playing with uh
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with boys the same age or even a bit older than you there's like a sort of made you made you stronger major tougher
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majority it certainly made me more competitive yeah I think um and it also kind of teaches you a lot
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about you shouldn't underestimate yourself regardless of your you know regardless of your gender you should be
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yeah trying to push yourself to be the best and I didn't care if it was up against like a six foot tall Butler like
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I just try you know so yeah no I'm really I appreciate it yeah that's cool
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and then you moved to Auckland at 17 you came here to study and she said everything must have happened
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really quick yeah it did I think that was one thing that was tough for me at the time is kind of breaking into teams
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or having I did try to make the under 17s you know the under 17 Women's World
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Cup that was here I wish I had to make that team um and I did travel down it kind of
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every week uh for us like a trial sort of squad and but never actually made the squad and
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that was a moment where I was just so devastated you know um good I'm pleased to hear there's been
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a little bit of adversity in your life of course there has been you can't get success without failure so
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um but yeah so that was a moment that was really like crushing for me obviously you know young kid wanting all
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these dreams and not getting perked that's you know always hard um and then how does how does that
00:15:41
happen that you missed out on the under 17 New Zealand team and then the the next year or even the same year you're
00:15:46
playing for the national I think I had a I I grew about three foot tall which helped I got a little bit you know
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stronger got a bit fitter um I think technically I got a little bit better I got a little bit smarter
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with the game uh moved to Auckland as well so I was under the noses of their coaches more often and I think that's
00:16:05
how it can happen for me and since then you you're I mean it probably doesn't feel like this for you
00:16:10
but from an outsider's perspective when you read the Wikipedia page it looks
00:16:14
like the last 13 14 years has just been like a crazy Whirlwind like you're in
00:16:18
Tennessee for five years um then you're then you're in um Sweden and you're in uh Portugal and you're in
00:16:26
Australia and you mean more you're playing for the New Zealand national side this whole this whole time from an
00:16:32
outsider's perspective it looks like it's been a hell of a life yeah it is I
00:16:36
mean that's what's great about football is it's a global Sport and it's the
00:16:40
biggest most popular sport in the world and it's everywhere it's all over the
00:16:44
world it would take you uh to some incredible places and it you know meant that I could go and play in
00:16:51
the states and you know pay for my education and just the amount of opportunities that I've got through
00:16:57
football are just phenomenal and um I'm just so excited that you know Australia and New Zealand are going to
00:17:04
see the global game it's just not common football is just not that popular here
00:17:08
at all no it's way down in the in the sporting ranking out yeah we just don't
00:17:12
understand it do you does it bother you when people here soccer um and I suppose being being a little
00:17:18
bit spending so much time in America you're sort of used to it that's what I
00:17:21
mean it was in America yeah it's it's soccer and um but I think yeah it is football like that's the
00:17:30
traditional sort of that was the yeah makes no sense that rugby should be called football it should be like a
00:17:35
handball or yeah candy for short Maybe not maybe yeah well even living in Australia now because football's now
00:17:41
it's AFL yeah and I'm like no you know it's just guess it can get confusing but yeah football is
00:17:48
definitely the right word for us yeah so so you moved to Tennessee 17 18. I actually went when I was 20. oh okay
00:17:56
yeah I see you're in Auckland for a couple of years I was in Auckland studying for a while psychology yeah
00:18:02
yeah yep and then um just decided to go over there continue my study and I heard a
00:18:08
lot of really good things about college and um kind of looked around or you know
00:18:14
uh sent kind of a playing resume out to like some you know I don't know it was
00:18:21
some system that worked into some Scouts yeah pretty much and um yeah met with a
00:18:26
lot of different teams they actually committed to Maryland because I really like the coach his name is Brian Penske
00:18:31
and I went I was about to go to Maryland but he told me at the end of my recruitment year that he was moving to
00:18:37
Tennessee and he was like do you want to just like have a look at school because
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I liked him a lot as a coach and I love Tennessee it was awesome so I was like yeah let's do it it was
00:18:46
fantastic what'd you love about it um I loved that it was only a women's team
00:18:54
there and women's sport at the University of Tennessee is traditionally really big so
00:19:00
the the I don't know if you've heard of The Lady Vols basketball it's a huge
00:19:05
program um where they had a very famous women's Coach that took them to just several
00:19:12
championships and they were just extremely successful so the the emphasis on women's sport and women's success and
00:19:18
women's Athletics there was massive and I love that and they also had a lot of
00:19:22
international athletes which I also really really loved the facilities were fantastic so it was just amazing it's an
00:19:29
amazing place what about what about homesickness you're a long way a long way from whangarei yeah I was really
00:19:33
homesick when I first went there like first six months it was a wreck it's where were we staying were you like in a
00:19:38
dorm or a hall or a flat or what I started off in some dorms sort of um student departments kind of and then um
00:19:49
yeah eventually moved into kind of off-campus living and it was just awesome eh was it it really
00:19:56
was once I got over the homesick I was I loved it and I fell in love with country
00:20:00
music and it was just such a cool experience seriously anyone any like kid in New Zealand especially like women's
00:20:07
footballers that want to be successful go to college I'm telling you it's the
00:20:11
best thing for you you get you will end up you know getting your education paid for most of the time if you're a good
00:20:17
player and um you know you have an incredible experience and it's a really good stepping stone into professional
00:20:24
you know and did it feel like you'd walked into like the scene of like 10 Things I Hate About You or you know it
00:20:31
was there like um sororities and yeah yeah the Red Cups movie it was actually it was yeah were
00:20:42
you in a house or is that what they call it a like a house or a yeah I did end up
00:20:46
like living in a house with a bunch of teammates no it has like a sorority house oh like actually yeah well those
00:20:53
those are more uh you kind of get they're like kind of uh generationally sorted out like that's like uh if you
00:21:03
have like all your parents my dad was this okay so then I'm gonna so we'll keep from whangarei no you're
00:21:11
not you're not allowed in the uh land I mean those you kind of if you had parties and you would rock up to one of
00:21:17
those but I I didn't particularly enjoy those really I mean I think they were
00:21:20
just it was just too much I like what's the drinking like over there because New
00:21:26
Zealand gets a very bad rep and I think rightfully so far like our drinking culture here
00:21:31
um what was it like over there in terms of binge drinking and oh it's right up
00:21:34
there yeah absolutely yes they know better than us well it was funny because I went uh over when I was 20.
00:21:41
you know and over there the league 2010 in the weekends because in the spring sessions you train all week and
00:21:51
then you get the weekends off and the weekends when you like go for it you know and um yeah I went out with my
00:21:57
mates 20 years old and um was wondering like why is why are they the why is the guy at the door put these huge x's on my
00:22:05
hand so he put x's on your hands because it means you can't drink it's under 20. and uh so I learned a
00:22:13
little thing called bathroom beers this is probably the worst thing to be talking about right before a workout but
00:22:17
this is a long time ago this is great yeah enough time has passed since then you played like a zillion games you're
00:22:24
good those days are certainly I'll see you go to the bathroom and just let the
00:22:27
scrub off there well no you take your beers into the bathroom and you drink them in there oh okay
00:22:32
what's it you have to go in there and like just like yeah if you're under 21. so yeah
00:22:38
you go to the bathroom like every half hour or so with a beer and you just go yeah with your mates
00:22:44
and they bring it in oh okay yeah sorry I was terribly explained but yeah just for clarification I do not do this
00:22:52
anymore I know I I love that yeah what is your relationship with alcohol like now no no don't really non-existent no
00:22:58
well I mean we have to keep on top of everything so yeah but would you have like a wine at dinner or no not at all
00:23:04
oh occasionally yeah yeah yeah and then um so you so in Tennessee you get a do you graduate you get a BA
00:23:12
in psychology um yep I get a I actually um yeah graduate graduated with uh being psych but because I tore my ACL
00:23:24
um towards the end of my undergrad year what you you get given basically when you go to college you get five years to
00:23:33
complete four like five seasons to complete four and if you get hurt you've got an extra season it's called your red
00:23:39
shirt season and I use my red shirt um season to study like a post-grade course because I've finished my degree
00:23:46
so I ended up you know injuring myself but becoming more qualified as a result that's always
00:23:52
awesome what what Drew you to psychology and it hasn't been helpful for like the
00:23:58
mental side of your game I actually really wanted to be a physio but um I wanted to be a professional footballer
00:24:07
too or a player for New Zealand so that was just not an option I had to I didn't
00:24:10
have the time to put in the hours so I just kind of leaned towards a more Theory based practice and that was
00:24:16
psychology and then I ended up really enjoying it over time studying a lot of different branches of it and um
00:24:22
yeah just kind of kept going with that and it has been helpful it has it in terms of um yourself internally or
00:24:29
reading other players or dealing with other players or how's it been helpful I
00:24:33
think mostly um coping with anxiety like performance anxiety and pressure because like
00:24:40
that just keeps ramping up the more successful you become it just it can become unbearable you know so
00:24:47
when you have the strategies to go back to kind of let's start and figure out why you
00:24:53
started playing in the first place and what you find extremely enjoyable about what you do it actually is really
00:24:58
helpful when you can have that sort of grounding mindful those sort of strategies are helpful and learning
00:25:04
about those over time when I was injured it was particularly helpful as well yeah
00:25:08
oh I can imagine yeah that must have been tough so you've um had like two fairly significant knee
00:25:16
injuries in your career so the first one was at Tennessee yes so what was that like a an ACL thing yeah both of them is
00:25:23
right on the same league yeah it's both of the way I mean this is an extremely common injury you actually
00:25:28
won't see most of the some of the best players in the world at this world cup
00:25:32
because of the this these injuries like this ACL injury it's happening all the
00:25:36
time in women's uh women's football in the women's sport as well and I the way I did it I mean it
00:25:42
was just the Classic when someone says like I blew out my knee it's exactly what I did so just sprinting at a
00:25:48
Defender stopping on the leg to change direction and it's just explodes almost terrible
00:25:55
injury so straight away you know that oh yes it feels horrible it's basically you just dislocate the
00:26:00
joint and it tears the main ligament that holds it all together and they're not
00:26:05
suppose there's a period where you you sort of hope for the best but expect the
00:26:09
worst and then you get the uh you get a scan or a ultrasound or whatever yeah and then what are they [ __ ] how's that
00:26:17
yeah look doing it for the first time it was you know you kind of know but just want to be optimistic but
00:26:23
um there's a pretty uh awful test that the physios do when they basically test if your joint's
00:26:29
still together and you can kind of feel it when they're testing so it's yeah
00:26:31
it's not pretty um and so that first one was just it was really tough but I was so grateful to be at College
00:26:40
under that support was just amazing because they just had the best facilities and they're the most
00:26:45
incredible um rehab facilities you mean yeah and I mean they're taking care of
00:26:49
football like I'm talking American football college players that I mean they see this injury time time again so
00:26:56
they know exactly like buy the book what to do um but mentally that must be I I'm probably projecting here in a way
00:27:04
look I'm not playing for the national team I'm just a guy that likes to run
00:27:09
but um the last like year or so I've been like coming back from uh well still
00:27:14
arthritis situation and I had a couple of physios that said if it hurts when I run the solution is just not to run so
00:27:20
I've got a little bit of cartilage there but but not much suffering been rehabbing hard but it's um again I'm
00:27:25
just a guy that likes to run because mentally it makes me feel good but [ __ ] it's been tough yeah it has been really
00:27:30
tough yeah you know the the thing that you love and it's like if I mean for you it's some ah I don't
00:27:36
know it's it's part of your identity at the moment yeah yeah absolutely especially when I did it again on the
00:27:42
second leg and and that's that's when I was a little bit wiser a little bit older and learned from the
00:27:48
first one and then um with my background and psychology I was very motivated to learn about the
00:27:55
uh the physiology of the injury why it takes so long what the surgery does when it you know the main problem is we're
00:28:05
periods of inactivity just atrophy your muscles and that's the problem you have
00:28:09
to build back muscle uh and then it's just this ongoing period of tedious exercise after tedious
00:28:15
exercise until you know you're eventually starting to walk normally and then you're eventually being able to jog
00:28:21
and it but it's just so slow so the way that you have to like focus on it is
00:28:26
like not days at a time but weeks at a time because then we focus on the weeks you see that you are moving forward in
00:28:32
the right direction so simple things like that where you actually have to reframe a lot really
00:28:38
helpful um and honestly there's just so much advice out there because people have done it so
00:28:44
many people have done it the best people the best players rupino's done I think
00:28:47
three times so she inspired me a lot when I was going through this um and now look at her she said her I
00:28:54
don't know fifth World Cup yeah yeah but how do you control I I don't know how do
00:29:00
you control like the negative thoughts and stuff because I'm thinking so for me
00:29:03
I just want to get running again and that's it um for you I mean you've got to think Sheriff I'm
00:29:09
not back in time there's going to be some 17 18 year old that comes in and you know like emotionally and mentally
00:29:15
how the [ __ ] do you deal with that so you're trying to get yourself better
00:29:19
but in the meantime someone else could be coming and taking your spot I guess that comes down to like just really
00:29:25
focusing on what you can control because if you are fixating on things you can't control it's just not going to
00:29:31
help you at all so you just have to go back to what you can control for yourself and that's what I did with my
00:29:36
second one I just was like I'm gonna go for this and I'm gonna do everything I
00:29:40
can um to get back and um it worked it did yeah it was hard so hard you know and these knee injuries
00:29:49
I mean like you're nearly the same after but you figure out ways to prevent it in
00:29:55
ways to keep you strong so that you can be the best version of yourself at the time yeah you're nervous for 50 year old
00:30:01
Hannah no yes I'm terrified about your osteoarthritis and you I'll get a star cycling career I think
00:30:08
certainly some sometimes I'll get out of bed and turn the money to go for a win it's like
00:30:13
oh it feels like I've played like 100 games for the All Blacks or something um okay so then so from Tennessee yeah
00:30:21
so where do you end up after that you end up in Sweden no Portugal uh no yeah I went to Sweden as my first
00:30:28
professional contract um and that was an interesting experience what do you mean well
00:30:36
we first of all we the Internationals that go to this like clubs in Sweden I mean this is probably
00:30:44
different now and I hope it is because there's more and more investment in the
00:30:46
women's game but when I went in there um I ended up living with a Canadian International but
00:30:52
we stayed in this it was a a basement but it was being rented out it was a basement uh apartment it was rented out
00:31:00
by one of the managers um work friends which is really really weird actually so bizarre if you think about it and uh
00:31:11
that was fine and good and whatever like it's just it was such a small town yeah
00:31:15
and uh the management just kind of worked with with people that really supported the women's game so it's
00:31:23
actually quite cool what they did and they had facility or places for players Internationals to come and live and it
00:31:30
was just a really easy way to help us like have somewhere um at the basement it was a little bit
00:31:36
uh like my stuff got really moldy because it was just really damn I mean with Sweden you know so that was a
00:31:43
bummer but it was an adventure you know like it's the first time professional
00:31:48
um it's very small town in the South Sweden and it was a great Club awesome um people uh improved significantly did
00:31:57
you yeah it did yeah oh it's just pushed the if you want to just really improve
00:32:01
uh at football you've got to go to these leagues these leagues will push you and
00:32:06
yeah and I suppose because you didn't really want to go home to your basement
00:32:09
you spend extra long at training exactly yeah as long as we could right it wasn't
00:32:14
that bad yeah it really wasn't that bad but it's just funny you all hear a lot
00:32:18
of funny stories like that from women's players and I think from like I would
00:32:21
argue like maybe a lot of women's athletes all over the world because uh sport for women is not really set up in
00:32:28
the way or traditionally it's not really set up in the way it is for me you're
00:32:32
not treated as well as the men exactly yeah yeah most of the time I think sometimes you must have seen like
00:32:38
seismic improvements and and yours for 30 years yeah I mean I've gone from that
00:32:42
to like I went and played in Portugal uh at sporting where Ronaldo played and it's the academy and we're like all as a
00:32:50
collective men's and women's training is the same sort of kind of facilities and
00:32:53
living like close to Lisbon and like you're treated like a real professional
00:32:57
along with Melbourne City where I'm at now it's the same thing so yeah it has
00:33:01
did you did you have seen Ronaldo in real life no I never saw him but I did see Bruno
00:33:08
what's his name damn place for Manchester United I don't know you're asking the titler
00:33:13
guy yeah well all I know about Ronaldo is um I would change sexuality for him would you
00:33:21
I don't know he's yeah he's good I feel like it'd be yeah maybe love himself a
00:33:27
bit too much I don't know I think so man what about the Olympics did you meet do
00:33:32
you fangirl over anyone at the Olympics do you see anyone the Olympics um I saw in 2012 we met Neymar
00:33:42
you have to know who Neymar is you'll go and Google him later then if you don't
00:33:46
know and um another guy that you won't know but that was the biggest who's the
00:33:52
other guy that I won't know because of um I don't know people that are into
00:33:55
football that listen to this what are the Brazilians because we were Brazil played no God no sorry I'm not that old
00:34:05
you know I don't know no Google Neymar though he was again man he's fantastic
00:34:11
all I know all I know is Messi Ronaldo and Beckham and that's and Rooney I haven't met any of those guys sorry yeah
00:34:17
um because I had Marcus Marcus Daniel on the pot do you know Marcus Daniel was tennis player he got a bronzeman about
00:34:21
the last games um yeah for for doubles and I asked him that same question and he said they yeah they saw the Williams
00:34:27
sisters and Usain Bolt at the food court one day and they would they were just like they ended up like taking their
00:34:32
food away and going and eating in private because they were just like swarmed so you got all the all these
00:34:37
people there the the the the best of the best in the world and and then you've
00:34:41
got these people that everyone knows marriages they're trying to do the same
00:34:44
gig exactly I can't get any privacy oh God all right we have to look up how am
00:34:49
I looking up Neymar right of his name down okay everybody listening is going to be like
00:34:55
dude really yeah you're a loser you're a loser what an embarrassment watch him
00:34:59
play too because he's fantastic yeah and then um so so you go from Sweden to
00:35:04
Portugal from Sweden I yeah that's actually where I did my second ACL and then when was
00:35:10
this this was reasonably recent day it was 2018. 19. 2018 I came back from it and then yeah I went
00:35:19
to Portugal kind of after the World Cup in France um and that was great it was awesome I loved it
00:35:28
it improved my touch I mean I've never really been a very technical player so
00:35:32
that to improve that part of my game was really important what does that mean can
00:35:36
you explain that so that's like because by this stage you'd already played like
00:35:39
say 50 games for New Zealand or something yeah like you're an experienced yeah and so I'm the kind of
00:35:44
forward that kind of as athletic sort of running in behind fast strong winning balls in the ear it's quite a raw way of
00:35:51
playing um whereas if you're say like a midfielder or you you're a striker that
00:35:56
comes down to get the ball at your feet that's making that means that you're
00:36:01
kind of a more technical player and you're able to take really good touches on the ball and dribble past people and
00:36:08
um that part of my game I obviously was improving over time but going to Portugal it really helped I played
00:36:13
basically among the Portuguese national team wow yeah so we actually played them
00:36:18
recently and I just met up with all of them and it was fantastic oh how cool what do they say is it Spanish do they
00:36:23
speak there Portuguese or Portuguese did you did you know any could you look did
00:36:27
you learn it I learned this is how do you play all you do is you learn then you learn like all the
00:36:34
moves on the on the football field so if it's right in Swedish it's like if it's
00:36:38
Lyft it's vinster and then it's like because there's pressure in Portuguese
00:36:42
there's couldado you got to be careful so you learn all of that just the key
00:36:46
words for the game exactly um and then you know the Internationals because everywhere you kind of play
00:36:52
you'll have Internationals and English is the kind of the base language and you
00:36:56
would have like another coach telling you what the coach is saying in your ear just translating it you know
00:37:03
gotta be so difficult there's a quite a quite a lonely experience can be but
00:37:09
International so it's like it's not hard to um you know not understand something in
00:37:16
football because it really is so Universal it's a universal game you know so everybody tends to understand what's
00:37:23
going on when it comes to games but the communication back and forth was a coach
00:37:27
sometimes is what has the difficult so you've got your phone out and you're
00:37:32
recording it and then putting it through a translator I've done that so many
00:37:34
times yes yeah yeah unreal what's the what's the um is there a game that stands out as the best
00:37:43
game of your career I know you've had a game where you scored like five goal you
00:37:46
scored all the goals who was who was that foreign against was that for New Zealand
00:37:51
Melbourne City right so that was just so that's where you're at now you're
00:37:55
playing Melbourne now Melbourne City yeah so the season before last was a boxing day match against Melbourne
00:38:03
Victory so that's why that was so awesome because Victory are Arch enemies and we beat them five I think it was
00:38:12
five did they score I can't remember if they scored or not but regardless it was
00:38:16
just the most satisfying game ever and and you scored five goals obviously it's
00:38:20
a team effort but did you like putting modesty aside like can you look back now and go you played out of
00:38:27
your [ __ ] skin yeah yeah look I think I was good to be in the right positions I was
00:38:34
in the in the positions where I needed to be as a fort and my team did the rest as a Ford all you
00:38:41
are there to do is to put the ball away and if you're in the right position to
00:38:43
do so and you do it you've done your job because your team relies on you to to do
00:38:49
that they they build the ball up to put it on a platter for you to finish and that's the ideal sort of way that
00:38:54
football works and then did would you say like objectively their goalie had a like a bad game or
00:39:01
um I think there were a couple of goals where yes the keeper really messed up and also one of their Defenders really
00:39:09
messed up as well so that if you're a Ford that can anticipate mistakes like
00:39:14
that that's a that's a good thing so it's always key to like look out for
00:39:18
those kind of mistakes from the other team but yeah they she did have a bit of a man that game God who would want to be
00:39:23
a keeper right that's going to be the I know the tough have you ever been um on
00:39:28
a team where the the keepers had a like an absolute shocker and how do you deal with that afterwards
00:39:34
um like it's gonna be the hardest thing if you if you know you're stuffed up
00:39:36
like you'd carry the weight of the I don't know of course I think I mean
00:39:41
being yeah I think when you're in a team sport no matter what happens you all
00:39:46
take ownership of that result you know what I mean so if I'm scoring five goals
00:39:50
for example that's not my win that's our win because we did it you know and if we
00:39:56
lose five now that's our loss that's not the keeper yeah you know that's not the
00:40:00
Keeper's fault for for um conceding five goals it's all of us we all like take responsibility for
00:40:07
for those results [Music] is um this is just me projecting here uh but is life going to be boring for you
00:40:14
when you retire like your 20s have been insane right insane you've been playing
00:40:20
for New Zealand the entire time you've been in Tennessee you've been in Portugal you've been in Sweden living in
00:40:25
a basement albeit yeah it's like this is a party that you wouldn't want to end but then I'm
00:40:33
guessing from your perspective maybe you're like I just want to you know get
00:40:36
my roots and settle down somewhere yeah you nailed it honestly um I yeah that my 20s were filled with uh a
00:40:45
lot of moving around and that's hard you know I found it hard doing it um and a lot of the time my moving was
00:40:52
done it wasn't my really my choice because of my injuries most of the time was why I
00:40:57
had to keep finding new contracts um and then just you know post injury um even during covert I think I was
00:41:06
coming off yeah it was after the uh Portugal gig they had and um covered her in a lot of women's teams
00:41:16
just lost so much money and I was like shoot I've got to find a club and I ended up going playing in Germany
00:41:23
which was a tough stint that was a tough one I overlooked Germany whereabouts in
00:41:28
Germany doucheburg right why was that I don't recommend you guys why why was
00:41:33
that tough uh tough coach very intensive training I mean Germany's kind of um well known for this the
00:41:42
Bundesliga is a really good league so I I loved it pushing myself in that respect it was awesome uh but our team
00:41:48
yeah we weren't that good so so we were getting beaten a lot and uh our coach was he was just a maniac to
00:41:57
put it lightly what was it just the like the just the just the German trains that
00:42:02
everyone speaks of or just an absolute man yes I'm telling you if you don't
00:42:05
pass it right or you don't you don't control the ball properly you're running
00:42:10
you're like old school like no uh emotions allowed just straight out like oh I mean it was hell we had a period of
00:42:22
time where it's just snowed for for two weeks straight and we just did two hour gym circuits and a
00:42:30
tiny gym about the size of this room for like two and a half hours like I was like
00:42:38
what was the purpose like to build like resilience mental toughness or absolutely there had to be and then we
00:42:47
um what happened was we got locked down and in Germany if you lift your house we
00:42:53
had a positive case in our team and we got uh put on lockdown so we're only doing Zoom workouts also awful
00:43:01
um but then we uh so so if you were if you left your isolation period because we had to be
00:43:11
stuck inside for two weeks if you lift that uh and you were caught by the German authorities leaving your home
00:43:19
um it was like a fifteen thousand Euro fine or something it was yeah so but the coach he comes over and he goes
00:43:27
now what you're going to do is you're going to you guys are going to run but
00:43:29
go at night so they don't get you I'm just like dude I'm not doing it's dead serious he was like you have
00:43:40
to go and run go and run at night I was like no thanks that's amazing character building though
00:43:46
hey guys good stories oh insane stories good stories so when how much longer have you got in the game uh there's the
00:43:54
World Cup coming up and then there's um the Olympics next year but it like do
00:43:58
you feel like you're still sort of peaking as a player or do you feel like you're over the Apex and on the way yeah
00:44:04
look honestly after my second injury I was like man I don't know how much more
00:44:08
I've got in me honestly and um uh playing for Melbourne City my first season there I actually had a
00:44:15
rejuvenated sort of energy for them for the game because I I performed really well I had one of my best seasons and
00:44:24
um that really kind of motivated me a lot and I thought how awesome like gonna be heading into a home World Cup in this
00:44:30
form and hopefully carrying it on um and obviously you know I did think about taking a
00:44:35
break after this world cup um from at least Club football as well but I thought like why would I do that
00:44:41
when I put so much work into it and I would be peeking for this world cup so uh looking to sign with City again
00:44:48
um this coming season yeah and uh then beyond I'm not too sure yeah hopefully
00:44:53
the Olympics maybe but is there um like is there much money in women's football
00:44:57
like it's only getting bigger and better but I wouldn't you know I wouldn't say
00:45:01
go and play women's football because like you get paid Millions like that's
00:45:04
certainly not the case but it's definitely improving significantly yeah yeah because I mean you're we'll get to
00:45:12
I mean we've talked about the um the psychology papers and stuff and I mean there's you're incredibly smart and
00:45:18
intelligent so your 20s could have been spent like building up a career and basically doing anything you [ __ ]
00:45:24
wanted like you know what I mean yeah totally yeah so yeah so you wouldn't want to get to the end of your career
00:45:30
and be like 35 or 37 exactly absolutely nothing to show for which is actually a massive anxiety for most athletes and
00:45:39
most friends you know that who are professional athletes is like how the hell are we supposed to retire and then
00:45:45
be unqualified for basically everything you know it's a really common thing and
00:45:51
um you know that's why players associations are so important yeah because they help give you a lot of Life
00:45:57
advice to help you with scholarships to study if you haven't done so and work
00:46:02
experience coaching licenses you know the thought of you know unfortunately your career can only last as long as
00:46:09
your body can you know so um and for I think for women's footballers in particular that's really
00:46:16
important because we're not left with Millions to say later yeah so um yeah I think grafting your career
00:46:22
while playing is something that's highlighted everywhere and it's really
00:46:26
important that people do that yeah what will you do afterwards psychology do you
00:46:29
think um towards that but that's for sure sports psychology yeah in the football fields that way I think
00:46:39
if anything I would like to um you know investigate more uh go more scientific a little bit maybe more
00:46:47
neuropsychology also with psychology or sports injuries I find that fascinating just because of the strategies I kind of
00:46:55
applied I found really really worked for me and so I would like to kind of obviously you've studied that further
00:47:01
again what do you mean what were some of those strategies oh I mean I managed to
00:47:04
sort of um understand a little bit more about the mechanism of the injury and understanding what the problem is kind
00:47:11
of naming it to taming it kind of thing so you understand what's happening yeah
00:47:16
it's cool like you can't understand what's happened or what's happening to
00:47:21
your injury and then um once you learn more about the physiological side of it and you have a
00:47:27
theoretical understanding of it you actually can apply a lot with your mind to those
00:47:34
um we have exercises that you have to do so for example when you're learning to
00:47:39
run again or retraining your niece that doesn't swing in dangerously because what you're wanting
00:47:46
to do is protect that joint at all costs so when you're doing a movement actually
00:47:51
thinking about the movement to re energize those connections those proprioceptive connections so that kind
00:47:59
of aspect I found really really worked and I think it's really under um underestimated so I would like to
00:48:06
like obviously learn a little bit more about it and then also teach people about it too I don't know how you've
00:48:13
managed to find time favorite thing so there's the study there's all the
00:48:18
playing that we've talked about the the various like countries that you've lived
00:48:21
in but then all you follow you on Instagram there's the extracurricular stuff as well like you you're a mad
00:48:26
Artist as well like you've done a you've done a mural at Eden Parker to celebrate
00:48:31
the three the three Women's World Cups uh cricket rugby and uh and now football
00:48:36
um you design tattoos for people you're gonna you got any um ink on yourself that you've designed yeah I do
00:48:43
I do I have one here what is that what's that it's like a um that I kind of came up with and Rose and
00:48:55
there's a lily there and just a cool design I really wanted somewhere um there's definitely more that I want
00:49:01
you know don't tell my mum though you designed tennis for other people right so people can call it I used to do
00:49:09
that or you don't do that anymore I did that for a long time I've done some of
00:49:12
my teammates ones which I think is so cool to see that is that's the highest
00:49:16
honor I think hey I think a lot is I I want to do things always see if I can do it I like to
00:49:23
challenge myself except with the mural for example I've always wanted to do the
00:49:26
art that big and have opportunities to do that and next or another CEO kindly like said yes go for it and man that was
00:49:35
just such an incredible Challenge and I just like to push myself in in those aspects and I always like to yeah just
00:49:43
see how much better I can get at something do you ever have self-doubt with these things or oh yes absolutely
00:49:49
yeah definitely so how do you how do you get over there Human Condition yeah um freaking out for a little bit and then
00:49:58
just um adapting and then coming up with ways to to solve things like for example with
00:50:05
the Eden Park mural the the space I did it on was um almost like Road seal so it was a
00:50:11
terrible surface lots of unanticipated things like that and then the paint I used I would have
00:50:16
usually used like a street art paint that dries quick but um that the paint they gave me which I'm
00:50:22
thankful they did that was Dulux it was like furniture paint and it just dripped
00:50:27
down the second you sprayed it so I had to do some problem solving I freaked out
00:50:32
for a while but then I came up with it came up with a solution yeah where I use more stenciling and some um
00:50:40
masking tape kind of ways to keep the lines kind and then obviously some paint obviously helped just normal paint
00:50:46
paintbrush so yeah well your Hat's really good like there could be money in that post football if you chose to go
00:50:51
that way you could be like the next flocks yeah the next one sorry flux what's that
00:50:56
oh okay I'm taking a point back for that right for the name flocks on the other side of this wall
00:51:04
there's a flock so I'm going to show you afterwards she does like birds cool yeah
00:51:08
she's really oh unbelievable Wilkie doesn't know four locks unbelievable all
00:51:14
right it's a tie um what about your surfing you get out surfing or do you oh yeah do you do you
00:51:20
get told off by um like any Administration in your team for surfing or anything like that like as an injury
00:51:26
risk or so so in fact in your clubs like usually when you sign with the club team
00:51:33
they'll have a little detail in your contract that you're not allowed to do
00:51:37
certain things but you can't ski or you're not allowed to snowboard or like
00:51:40
but clubs I mean so far what I've signed is there's been no detail of that I mean
00:51:45
it says briefly something like you're not allowed to be Reckless you know defining those activities so most I
00:51:53
probably could get away with it but um do you go all right yeah yeah I mean what size board
00:52:00
uh I usually had a short board that's slightly smaller than me I haven't been
00:52:06
in so long though I mean it's hard like with this career it is you do sacrifice
00:52:10
a lot when you when you're a professional athlete it's an amazing career and it's just obviously living
00:52:15
the dream but you do sacrifice of course so um yeah I haven't been for ages yeah
00:52:21
I'm so jealous I I've had a board for like the last 10 years it's very big
00:52:25
it's like it's probably borderline stand-up paddleboard and I still can't
00:52:30
get up on it huge it's me it's massive that's enough yeah and so what about the music you've
00:52:37
got some songs on Spotify your music's really good I really like it yeah man I
00:52:41
I actually went through a period there where I mean I've been playing guitar
00:52:45
for a very long time since like a kid or yeah since I was about 12 my dad played
00:52:51
so he taught me and my little brother like played a bit of bass my older brother plays guitars
00:52:56
anything we kind of did was fostered within the family which was cool so that would have been I mean I think it's
00:53:00
never been easier to learn to play something like a guitar than what it is now with YouTube tutorials and stuff and
00:53:06
they'd have the fingering in slow motion and everything like that so did your Ted did your dad manage to he
00:53:12
obviously managed to teach you okay like you're pretty good yeah well he he bought me my first guitar but then I
00:53:17
actually had about a year of lessons I've always been a kid that wants to get
00:53:21
I'm very stubborn and they ever want to get good at something I just sat and I
00:53:25
did it until I was you know because I just was like that we're quite different
00:53:28
I'm a quitter two lessons there I'm done wow so you just want to improve I think
00:53:34
there was anything creative I really enjoyed and I thought man that sounds amazing or that looks so cool I have to
00:53:41
learn how to do it and I just did it until I did it and uh yeah that first year lessons I had an amazing guitar
00:53:48
teacher at school and uh he he made everything very easy so I recommend if you're starting an
00:53:54
instrument like go actually get lessons because then it forces you to go a lot of the reason people don't kind of
00:54:00
continue with the instruments because they just don't do it enough you know you have to keep doing it so
00:54:06
um that sort of persistence is needed and then how long did it take to to get the confidence to like play in front of
00:54:13
another person like a non-family you know what I mean it's been a while yeah
00:54:16
and I know yeah I feel like a lot of people that learn an instrument must have that a like that's got to be quite
00:54:21
a terrifying thing to yeah to to you know to like it's a it's a very vulnerable moment isn't it absolutely
00:54:28
you feel it must be very exposed so can you remember that moment I do I think you know any time I've gone
00:54:36
on a tour with New Zealand I'd bring my guitar and we always have like a signal
00:54:41
something like that if you bring a guitar on tour like there's going to be an expectation that you have to play it
00:54:46
to others of course but I kind of brought it you know it calms me down that's you know you just wanted to like
00:54:51
practice as a distraction thing in your room and then with like some of my friends and we're just mess around you
00:54:55
know um but yeah playing even in front of them was like you all automatically sound terrible
00:55:03
nervous yeah that's awful so that's always like a yeah a tough part to get
00:55:09
over but it's a it's a good way to practice confidence you know and trusting
00:55:14
yourself and your self-esteem and stuff like that yeah I suppose especially if you get the validation back yeah that
00:55:19
you're probably just so what were you doing just like like Ed Sheeran covers
00:55:22
Fleetwood Mac covers no what what yeah it would be something like that one of those yeah and then so how do you make
00:55:28
the leap from um you know learning to play the guitar doing covers to writing your own songs
00:55:34
and then putting them on Spotify so when I was in Sweden the thing is and you know when we're playing professionally
00:55:42
you you train for about two hours and then you've got the rest of the day you
00:55:47
know during the week especially if it's like you know leading up for a game you
00:55:51
have to be ready for a game so those rest hours I really took advantage of um and I got pretty serious with my
00:55:57
music because I thought it would be a place where I would end up I would have thought you know I could do this you
00:56:03
know I really believed that I could end up doing that and so that's where I put a lot of time and
00:56:07
energy into writing music I had a lot of songs already that I just written over over the years and decided to record a
00:56:13
couple and yeah just Chuck them on and just wanted to see how they did and yeah I've been playing like a little bit
00:56:20
of live gigs here and there like those few years I haven't done it for a while
00:56:23
honestly it's kind of um an Avenue that I thought I would actually really go for
00:56:29
it but during the process I actually got really frustrated it's something about
00:56:32
turning a passion into a profession that kind of ruins it because they had to sing the same damn song over and over
00:56:39
again I like I can't hear the song anymore it drives me nuts I like when you're recording it when you're
00:56:44
recording it yeah because it's not right that doesn't sound right that doesn't
00:56:47
sound right over and over and over oh yeah you're most popular song on Spotify
00:56:51
it's called waiting for the sun um and it's um lyrically it's really
00:56:56
intense I it's a song about um waiting for a relationship like a right the sun is a I think so it's
00:57:03
something like that it was um what do you mean you think so okay it was so long ago I'm so old
00:57:10
you're 30 second one you can never sit down in front of a 50 year old I will
00:57:16
say that's fair you were just talking about osteoarthritis no but like I I listened to it a few times on repeat on
00:57:22
my run today and I'm not normally a lyric person but I I mean so I think I think it was about like a part or um
00:57:29
going through a really tough relationship and then finding someone that was finally like
00:57:34
I've waited for the Sun and it's happened for me kind of thing because most of my music I mean like most
00:57:38
artists and most people right when they feel the most and like you know relationships of those like we really
00:57:46
have those heightened feelings yeah obviously it isn't what that was a huge outlet for me there's a lot of songs
00:57:51
I've written about uh my football and failures my injuries I've written about
00:57:54
I've got so many songs that I just haven't um I certainly haven't recorded them but
00:58:00
they're definitely somewhere how do you from someone that's got zero musical
00:58:05
experience or Talent OR ability at all like how to how do you attend a song about like football failure into a into
00:58:10
a song like what are some of the lyrics of that one I like pretty pretty terms like being
00:58:16
patient and um kind of not being a victim in it yeah controlling what you can and there's a
00:58:23
lot of metaphors you can use you know what I mean like you can start to get really artistic with it that way yeah
00:58:29
but honestly you say you can start to get autistic that way but I think you're
00:58:32
just that way that way sort of um yeah yeah definitely I think um I think overall all of that really helped just
00:58:42
my mental health and also just helped my performance and calming down on the pitch as an athlete as well and figuring
00:58:50
helps me figure myself out a lot as well yeah because living away from home is awful you know it's hard because I do
00:58:57
love my country and I love being home like now it's being close living in Australia is a dream yeah so like when
00:59:03
you are living abroad and then your engine you can't play or like you're not
00:59:07
getting picked to start and you're just like why the hell did I move this far
00:59:10
you know yeah um so all of that just helped so much and as you you mentioned you
00:59:18
um it's good for your mental health it's your mental health been most mostly good
00:59:20
like obviously apart from the periods where you've got like knee injuries and
00:59:24
other other thing other you know highs and lows or lows rather that come along with being a professional sports person
00:59:29
it's been mostly good yes absolutely yeah but honestly it has been being a professional athlete like because
00:59:35
because you're so defined like that yeah you are um I think one way for me to uh
00:59:42
kind of not get so bogged down and and being defined as a professional athlete when
00:59:48
you're injured you're suddenly not that my music or my creative side really
00:59:52
helped me in that respect because it's like okay football doesn't actually
00:59:54
Define me it's not the single most thing that defines who I am I'm also a
00:59:59
creative person you can relax there's probably other people that need to worry about being
01:00:04
defined by but you've got plenty of feathers in your Camp you're good there's actually like quite a like wide
01:00:10
community of athletes that do have creative sides is there yeah yeah I have a couple of Melbourne City teammates
01:00:17
that um uh photographers I got the some of them they're graphic designers the Olympic
01:00:24
um the ioc they have like an athlete artist program yeah and so I met a a javelin thrower from England Great
01:00:31
Britain who like I kind of connected with and he does these amazing paintings he's an insane painter wow so there is
01:00:37
actually like quite a community out there yeah I love it so cool and the um the person that waiting for the sun is
01:00:43
about did do you play them the song like is there a particular person that knows
01:00:49
that song is about I think yeah I think back then like the person I was dating at the time didn't know that and that
01:00:53
was pretty special um do you plant them on like uh on a USB or a computer or you play it to them
01:00:59
live because I played it so so just like on radio okay with my microphone um no guys it's one of those like one of
01:01:14
those moments that I suppose very few people will get to experience in their life where someone writes a song about
01:01:19
you so I'm just wondering what that moment's like and what what your Recollections are of that moment yeah I
01:01:24
think that was like pretty special I think um but I think it's so I think it was highly appreciated at the
01:01:34
time and um I think I've done that a lot of the time with like Partners I've had and like
01:01:40
just like you would maybe write a love letter or like take them on a nice date or just any way to show appreciation
01:01:45
like that's that would be one of my ways of doing that um do you have to do three months before
01:01:52
you get a Hannah song yeah no I mean at the time I think yeah it was something that I did frequently but
01:01:59
um oh yeah Taylor Swift just like I know right like any I think any artist or any
01:02:05
um musician would say the same it's just like it's a way to feel so you know are
01:02:11
you seeing anyone right now yes my partner lives in Queensland her name's Katie how long you guys been together
01:02:16
we've been together over two years now right is she the one I listened to a podcast on my run today in preparation
01:02:22
of this this may have been going back where all right now this was an American girl you're on the same team
01:02:30
um that was my last relationship okay yeah okay yeah so you and Katie have been together how
01:02:37
long two years just over two years yeah yeah well amazing yeah so does she play football as well no she is not remotely
01:02:43
associated with footballs which is like I think it's very helpful like me and
01:02:47
who could have a good conversation yeah I think so I think she actually she would now yeah right
01:02:54
yeah she would now yes yeah but no she's fantastic um she actually was she grew up like
01:03:00
dancing she's a dancer what song has she got did you she got a song yet I like I said I
01:03:06
haven't done that in so long so you've been um you've been really uh I
01:03:12
don't want to say um defined but you've been really open about your sexuality
01:03:16
and you've um you're involved in a couple of Charities that you know support like gay rights and stuff like
01:03:22
that yeah um which is really really cool what was what was that Journey like like
01:03:27
the coming out journey when did you realize you were gay when I was probably 18 yeah and
01:03:34
just kind of was in denial for a couple of years and then um kind of told my some teammates of mine
01:03:44
um I went out to a gay bar with a few of them because that was kind of like they
01:03:49
were just going out there for fun and then we was listening in Auckland this is an Auckland yeah this is like family
01:03:54
it must have been family family is a great time I think it might have been it's still one of those I don't know if
01:03:59
it was family um and I said to one of them it was anyways quite heavily on you you know
01:04:07
when you can't really talk about um who you're seeing and your new partner and you're really excited and
01:04:13
it's fresh and it's new but you feel like you can't you're holding it yeah so
01:04:17
I went up to one of my teammates and I said like I have to I have to tell you something and I could tell already when
01:04:23
I say that like she already knows what I'm gonna say and she goes like oh yeah
01:04:26
what's that and I said well let's just say it's not entirely uh uh it's not entirely
01:04:33
um unreasonable for me to be in this place was my way of coming out like it was just so hard to say at the time you
01:04:41
know so much um Yeah it's you're so such a my in such a minority position at that at that point
01:04:49
so sexy you have to build it up to be such a big thing hey I know so that was a very terrifying experience like anyone
01:04:55
who's been through it and um I will say like looking back like it really if I was was
01:05:03
to give anyone any advice it's just it's never going to be as bad as you think
01:05:06
ever you know I talked to my best friend on the team about it um and any every reaction was perfect
01:05:13
was like is that it like what do you mean like why are you so nervous and shaky and crying and it's like that's
01:05:19
great like you know we really were you were you that like terrified yeah absolutely yeah
01:05:27
I think now why is that just overthinking and almost yeah catastrophizing absolutely you're
01:05:32
thinking like that you're going to be disowned I mean you know that's unfortunately the case for a lot of like
01:05:38
kids um or young young adults sort of come into terms with themselves and that's
01:05:44
why it's important that we have like a lot of visibility of um especially if
01:05:48
we've got a platform to show and celebrate your identity as much as you can and show you know that you're not
01:05:57
you know it's not uh something to be chastised over it's not something to to
01:06:03
be you know despite what you might actually think uh it's yeah I think it's
01:06:10
disappointing when you've got kids who are suicidal um because they're just so ashamed of
01:06:15
their identity oh it's outrageous yeah it's completely outrageous and it but it
01:06:19
also seems outrageous oh man I'm a middle-aged uh white male so I kind of have an opinion on on anything like this
01:06:25
but it seems outrageous to me that uh it's still a thing that you have to make
01:06:28
that announcement like you know what I mean I never have to stand up in a room and say Hey I want everyone to know I
01:06:33
mean yeah totally I think yeah that's that is a interesting way to put it but I feel
01:06:40
like and and you're Lifetime and hopefully in my lifetime that'll that'll
01:06:44
change and it's just an announcement won't have to be made absolutely but I
01:06:47
think um the sort of the point of Pride and celebrating identity and respecting and
01:06:54
um feeling really great about who you are and that's part of the coming out processes is being able to the more that
01:07:02
that's seen and noticed the more comfortable that people who are on the brink of suicide you know
01:07:10
feel about their themselves and there's no hate for themselves there's no
01:07:14
self-hatred and despite what you've been conditioned into yeah completely so yeah
01:07:18
and and your your parents and brothers they were they were handy with it oh yeah absolutely they even
01:07:24
did they do that thing that I I Campbell Johnston uh sitting in the same seat as
01:07:29
you're the first oh yeah all black and he was like his his mum was like yeah
01:07:33
aren't you already and then his dad was just mumbling about something that was
01:07:36
happening in the duck pond on the farm like just like zero interest in it at all same sort of experience for you
01:07:42
similar yeah yeah yeah um yeah absolutely I think like anywhere I had absolutely catastrophized it like
01:07:51
you said and I thought it was going to go such a different way and everybody who loves me you know still still loves
01:07:57
me and you know doesn't make a difference and that's that's all that
01:08:01
you want and I think honestly if anybody goes through this and then they lose people as a result that shows that you
01:08:07
don't actually need them in your life yeah [ __ ] them right yeah it's a good
01:08:10
chance for these people to expose themselves and say okay good so if you um experienced any homo homophobia or
01:08:16
anything like that um I well you've been aware of it even if it's you're in Tennessee for is Tennessee
01:08:25
part of the like the Bible Belt right right um thankfully not well you do get the odd like
01:08:38
you know derogatory terms thrown at you when you're like maybe holding your partner's
01:08:42
hand on the street down in Tennessee for sure um I mean I had uh you know black friends in America that couldn't go to
01:08:51
some parts of Tennessee still so it was still a place that is just so okay I can just tip conservative and
01:08:58
ridiculous um so yeah I've had my fair share but in the football world no not too bad at all
01:09:05
so I'm really grateful for that yeah oh that's cool I'm happy to hear
01:09:09
that yeah yeah yeah it's really cool well I've taken up heaps of your time I
01:09:15
should probably let you well what so um we're recording this in late June so the
01:09:20
the tournament's about a month away at the time of recording this what's the
01:09:23
next month gonna look like yeah so we go into Camp um selection is tomorrow so well we get
01:09:31
told tomorrow and then it's publicly announced on Friday selection is and so
01:09:35
you're in the squad yeah and um the 23 Squad of 23 will be named internally tomorrow
01:09:43
and then publicly on Friday so from there uh there's a friendly game against
01:09:50
Vietnam and Napier and then we go into base into Keith Hay Park um and then start getting get up really
01:09:59
we have another and um a friendly I think it's Italy I think it's a closed
01:10:03
match though um so we've got two like kind of warm-up games and then go straight into it and
01:10:10
how many what's the story with tickets how many tickets do you get for each game so yeah we get like about six each
01:10:15
okay yeah so who's got them mum dad your two brothers my brothers are actually in
01:10:21
England so I don't think oh okay freeze up two more tickets yeah oh my family I got friends coming and
01:10:30
yeah well that's cool that's cool and um so a good tournament for you it's going
01:10:35
to look like like for Hannah Wilkinson personally a good tournament what's it
01:10:39
going to look like yeah look I'm um I'm so stoked honestly it's it's obviously
01:10:44
something that I've been gearing up for and this is definitely the Pinnacle event it's the Pinnacle event for a lot
01:10:50
of us so we are really gonna go and let's go out there and smash it eh it's
01:10:56
gonna be incredible I can just see like there's fire in your eye when you talk about it you like you
01:11:02
really light up [ __ ] you're gonna miss it aren't you yeah you're not like
01:11:06
whenever whenever that time comes hopefully you get to hopefully get to end on your own terms rather than with
01:11:11
an injury or something but totally yeah how does that gonna be like um yeah look
01:11:17
I've thought about that a lot because I have actually been close to just being
01:11:20
like I can't anymore you know with injuries and like how knees feel and the sacrifice uh but yeah in the end it's
01:11:27
your life's work you know so um and yeah just at least this tournament is extremely important and
01:11:35
it's an amazing group um and we're going to be incredible yeah well and as we've discussed you say it's
01:11:41
your life work but this is just one chapter of the many chapters that you're
01:11:45
going to have in your life I've got no doubt about that and I'm really excited
01:11:48
to see what you choose to do next because it seems like whatever you do you do Bloody well
01:11:54
thanks Wilkie [Music] thank you