Kayla McAlister

Early life Kayla McAlister was born on 6 August 1988 to Trish (nee Montgomerie) Her father Charlie played rugby union for Taranaki as well as rugby league professionally in Australia and England. He later coached the Manawatu Rugby Union team. Her mother played netball. Her older brother, Luke McAlister played rugby for the All Blacks. From the age of two months until she was eight she lived in Manchester while her father played rugby league for Oldham. In 1996 the family moved back to New Zealand and settled in Whangaparāoa on the Hibiscus Coast, where she attended Westlake Girls High School, graduating in 2006. Here she played netball and some touch rugby. In 2010 she also became a training partner with the Northern Mystics and was promoted to their first team in 2011. She had little time on court, though she did get to play in that year's grand final. She was dropped from the playing squad down to a training partner in 2012. Feeling her netball career was going backwards, McAlister attended one of the open trials. She said of the decision, "I was approaching my mid-20s and wasn't getting any younger, in a rut and this opportunity came upone door shutting and another one opening." At the trial she was put through various fitness, rugby skill and character assessment activities. The team won the tournament, which gained New Zealand entry to the 2013 World Cup held in June 2012 in Moscow, Russia.

2012–13 Seven Series Season During the team's first season in the inaugural Women's Sevens Series, where she debuted at Dubai, McAlister scored 12 tries for Auckland to assist them in winning the national provincial women's sevens title in Rotorua in early January 2015, for which she was awarded the Anna Richards Trophy for the best women player. Upon her return she scored two tries in the quarter-final and two in the semi-final lost to Canada at the São Paulo tournament, her only tournament of the season before the last tournament played in France.

Despite missing the start of the season she still was able to score 15 tries by its competition.

2016 Rio Olympic Games McAlister was a member of the New Zealand woman sevens team that competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She scored seven tries during the women's tournament, two against Kenya, two against Spain and one against France during the three victories in the first round, then two in the final, which the team lost to Australia, 24–17, earning McAlister a silver medal.

2017–18 Seven Series Season McAlister's first tournament, seven months after giving birth was at the first tournament of the 2017–18 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series which was held in Dubai on 30 November to 1 December 2017. Her daughter travelled with her, along with a paid support person in the form of her mother. After her husband Pita Ahki signed a contract to play rugby in Ireland for Connacht, McAlister decided that trying to balance her sevens commitments and while trying to maintain a long distance relationship and bring up their child was too much and she stepped away from the New Zealand and moved to Ireland with her 10-month-old daughter and husband. As a result she was not contracted for the New Zealand Sevens team announced in February 2018. Once in Galway she began playing 15-a-side rugby for the Galwegians club making her debut against Blackrock in February 2018. Soon after arriving in Ireland, she played for the Barbarian women against the Army at Aldershot on 17 March 2018, which the team won 37–0.

After the end of the 2017–18 rugby season, the family moved in 2018 to France after her husband signed a contract to play for the French club Toulouse.

COVID-19 Wanting to participate in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, McAlister returned to New Zealand, where she displayed sufficient form in domestic competition for New Zealand Rugby to announce in February 2020 that she had been awarded a contract for the next 12 months.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the Olympics to be postponed and ended McAlister's rugby plans. She rejoined her husband in France via a free ride on the reparation flight organised by the French government. She did not attempt to qualify for the rescheduled Olympics, though she did provide commentary for Sky Sports on the Sevens competition.

McAlister's rugby sevens career ended with her having played 92 games, scoring a total of 425 points from 85 tries, and receiving two yellow cards.

Awards and honours McAlister won the inaugural World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Year awarded in 2013. She was nominated for the same award in 2014, a title which was ultimately awarded to the Australian Emilee Cherry.

Personal life Of Māori descent, McAlister affiliates to the Te Āti Awa iwi. In the years leading up to the Rio Olympics, she studied for a Certificate in Early Childhood Teaching, but put it on hold after passing her first year to devote her time to rugby. Their daughter Stella Rose Ahki was born in 2017. McAlister gave birth to a second child Camille while she was in France and since then has had a third child.