Standing alone atop women’s college rugby, Freda Tafuna knows she’s not alone. In fact, playing this ultimate of team sports has always been a team game for Tafuna, on and off the field.
The heat-seeking missile from Lindenwood University had hardly played any rugby before she found a place in St. Charles. She had, however, grown up with it. Several of her seven brothers played, “and if you know what it’s like in big Polynesian families, with a lot of boys, the sister becomes the tackle bag,” Tafuna told GRR with a laugh. She learned quickly to handle herself, and she knew at least the basics of the game.
But through middle school and high school Tafuna played soccer and basketball. She didn’t touch a rugby ball in any official capacity until here senior year in high school. What’s more, she showed hardly a hint of the powerful presence she would be on the rugby field.
“Ask any of my soccer friends and they’ll tell you I never was the biggest physical threat,” Tafuna told GRR. “I kind of shied away from that. But when I started playing rugby I wasn’t scared; I was like ‘OK, this is what I need to do.’”
One and Not Done
Tafuna was encouraged to play rugby her senior year in high school at Villa Park in Southern California. She played in exactly one tournament … one … at the LA Invitational around the LA 7s. That was it, the sum total of her competition experience. COVID swept through to cancel everything else, and as a senior Tafuna wasn’t sure what she would be able to do after high school. But she had been seen. Word came through that Lindenwood University was interested in her to study and play rugby. It was a bit of a shock to Tafuna.
“I wasn’t really planning on going to college, but I learned more about Lindenwood from a friend from my church, and I saw they had a strong Polynesian community, and I thought that if I wanted to be serious about it, Lindenwood was where I needed to do. But I had a lot to learn.”
Truly she had a lot to learn. Much of her rugby exposure had been watching to Rugby League World Cup in 2017 and then playing 7s. So she had some very incorrect expectations of how the game would go as a 15-a-side union game. By her own admission, it wasn’t an easy transition.
“It was a struggle for two or three weeks,” Tafuna explained. “But I just started watching a lot of film, watching games from previous Lindenwood seasons, learning. I needed to figure out how to play in the back row.”
Time to Study
Film has continued to be a huge part of Freda Tafuna’s game. Her Head Coach at Lindenwood, Trevor Locke, said Tafuna is always reviewing film and studying the game. She started doing it because she felt she was behind in her rugby knowledge. She continued to do it because she was able to evaluate and make adjustments to her own performance. More of her film study is now on her own games.
It’s interesting that she is so dedicated to studying film because it is a solitary process, and solitary is probably not how one would describe Freda Tafuna.
