Otago rugby legend talks coaching, career goals

Varsity Women’s new coach Julia Gorinski admits to a few pangs of envy when she watches the team out on the pitch on Saturdays.

“I do get jealous. The team’s going pretty well, and it does look like a lot of fun out there.”

Mostly however, the former Otago Spirit captain, Matatū Super Rugby Aupiki player and Otago University Rugby Football Club (OURFC or Varsity) veteran is more than happy to be supporting from the sidelines.

Julia, who graduated from Otago with a BCom and Graduate Diploma in 2016, says she’s always been quite career-focused, and for the past eight years, alongside her rugby, has worked as an agribusiness manager for Westpac.

“I had a few injuries creeping up on me, but I think possibly if anything, it was the mental toll. Getting sick because I was just so essentially burnt out from working massive hours on a job and then training.”

She says Westpac has been a sympathetic employer, letting her work around her rugby training and from different offices when necessary. Some days however, this meant starting at 5.30am and finishing at 8.30pm.

So last year, she decided to hang up her boots, after playing her 65th cap for the Otago Spirit in the Farah Palmer Cup championship final. She then moved straight into the Varsity coaching role this season.

Having played 11 seasons for the Spirit, and more than 100 Premier games for Varsity, Julia says in the last couple of years she’s especially enjoyed the leadership side of the captain’s role, and watching the young players come through, which led her into coaching.

“It sounds really corny, saying you enjoy seeing other people succeed, but there's so much potential in some of the young girls. When you can't physically do it yourself, it's really cool to see other people do it.”

She also wants to give back to the club that has been instrumental in her success and given her so much during her student days.

“I felt like it would be criminal if I didn't do something once I finished, given everything I'd been given over the last 11 years. I’ve been somewhat a player-coach for a while, so it’s been a pretty easy transition, and I think the girls do listen to me.”

It’s given her a new appreciation for coaches and the coaches she had, including Jo Amundsen and Helen Littleworth.

“It was a pretty amazing team culture and I guess that's one thing I wanted to bring back in the coaching space . . .  to get back to our real Varsity style of fun, fast, footy, but a lot of fun off the field as well, because I think that's where you make most of your memories.”

Having grown up on the Taieri, after finishing Taieri College, Julia decided to go to Massey University with the aim of becoming a vet.

“But I hated Palmerston North, and all my school friends were at Otago having a good time.”

So, after one semester she came back to Dunedin.

“I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I went to a careers expo and there were people advertising for rural banking. I loved farming and I loved economics at high school, so I thought I'm going to be a rural banker and then I chose my course from there.”

She says while most agribusiness managers at the time she started out had been to Lincoln or Massey universities, with her Commerce background, and a little help from some Lincoln textbooks, she has been able to pick up the farming side of things along the way.

After five years, she graduated from Otago with a double major in Accounting and Finance, and a Graduate Diploma in Environmental Management.

“I just tried to drag it out as long as possible because I was having quite a lot of fun, probably mostly the sporting side of things. I did do rowing for a year at the University and got a trip to China out of it, so that was pretty cool.”

Initially, she started playing rugby for a club side in Dunedin, before moving to Varsity.

“I wanted to play for Otago, so I moved to Varsity because I thought I'd learn more and I made Otago the first year I moved to Varsity. I learned a lot from senior players and then once I became a senior player, I started teaching the young ones.

“It's [Varsity] very much a player-led team. I could not turn up one week and the girls would probably still have a good training session.”

Juggling her studies and playing rugby took “a bit of hard work” but it was after leaving university that the sporting side of things ramped up, as it became more professional, and the hours required grew.

She says playing Super Rugby for Matatū was “a pretty cool experience. Growing up as a kid, you watched the Highlanders, you watch Super Rugby, you'd never think you'd do it.”

But she especially loved playing for Otago.

“There was lots of talent in the team and lots of girls went on to play for the Black Ferns, and so it was a privilege to play with so many of them. It was probably one of the coolest environments I've ever played in.”

To achieve that cohesiveness and team culture, Julia says, “I genuinely think sometimes winning helps, but you can't get complacent. Everyone was just so insistent on getting better, so everyone worked so hard at training. But then there were also girls that didn't get as much game time because of the calibre of players. We had so much fun off the field, I think we genuinely had girls that didn't even want to play. They just wanted to be a part of the team.”

At the time of the interview, Varsity had played three games, won two and lost one by a penalty kick.

First and foremost, Julia wants the players to have fun. “I know we've got some really talented girls there, that are aspiring to go to the next level and I think lots of them are capable of that.

“We want everyone to improve, have fun and also learn a bit of work ethic and the value of hard work and what you can achieve with that.”

Julia has also just been promoted to Westpac’s Otago Southland Area Agribusiness Manager.

“It’s managing people as opposed to managing clients, but I'm hoping that the captaincy skills will crossover.”