For Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) Physical Training Instructor, Petty Officer Deena-Ranginui Puketapu, sport has never been just a pastime.

03 December, 2025

Sport has been the heartbeat of her life, her connection to whānau, and the vehicle that has taken her from Hawke’s Bay to the world stage.

This year, her remarkable contribution to sport – both on and off the field – has been recognised with the 2025 New Zealand Defence Force Sportsperson of the Year Award, honouring an athlete whose achievements, leadership, and embodiment of NZDF values set the highest possible standard.

In July last year, Petty Officer Puketapu played for the NZ Touch Blacks Women’s Team, winning silver at the 2024 Federation of International Touch World Cup in Nottingham, England.

She went on to have a stellar 2025, where she:

• represented New Zealand in the NZ Open Mixed Touch Team – earning the NZ Open Mixed Female MVP.
• played for the 2025 NRL Māori All Stars, and was named in the NRL All Stars Team of the Match.
• represented the NZ Māori Open Women’s Touch Team in Sydney

“Playing for the Māori All Stars… that was special,” she says. “It wasn’t just sport. It was representing my iwi, my hapu – the whole kaupapa was amazing.”

With 33 caps playing for New Zealand Touch Blacks, she says she’s looking ahead with her eye on 50 caps, before she thinks about starting to hang up her boots.

For the provinces she played for the Premier Touch League Northern Strikers and North Harbour Open Women’s Team, and she represented the RNZN in rugby and netball, and captained both the RNZN Open Women’s Touch Team, and the RNZN Women’s Basketball Team, where she was awarded Services Women’s MVP for both tournaments.

Born in Napier, and raised between there and her home in Patangata, Hawke’s Bay, Petty Officer Puketapu (Ngāti Porou/ Ngāti Kahungunu) grew up with a ball in her hand.

“My koro always said as soon as I could walk, I was playing something,” she laughs.

At Hukarere Māori Girls College, she became head girl and sports prefect, representing Hawke’s Bay in basketball, netball, and touch.

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In 2011 after homesickness and injury guided her back to Aotearoa from a US basketball scholarship, she briefly considered the New Zealand Police, but was too young, so she joined the Royal New Zealand Navy seeking challenge, sport, and adventure.

“I just wanted something different,” she says. “To play sport, travel, and challenge myself. Navy felt like throwing myself in the deep end – in a good way.”

Alongside her elite sporting achievements, she has developed and led an NZDF-wide “Wāhine Whakamarohirohi” strength and wellness programme, creating dedicated space to educate and empower women within the gym environment to live fitter, stronger, healthier lifestyles. Her vision has already influenced planning for future women-focused physical capability training across the Services.

Her dedication to mentorship, especially supporting junior athletes and first-time players, was highlighted in her nomination and strongly praised by the selection panel.

Petty Officer Puketapu’s elite performance, leadership, teamwork, humility, and service to others makes her an extremely deserving recipient of the NZDF’s highest sporting honour.

The New Zealand Defense Force conducting fleet maneuvers in the Hauraki Gulf in 2010, including the HMNZS (Protector-class offshore patrol vessels) Otago (foreground), Wellington, Pukaki, Rotoiti, Hawea, Taupo, and Manawanui.LAC Grant Armishaw/NZ Defence

Reuters

Published on: 

02 Dec 2025, 6:56 pm

The New Zealand Navy will return to service in the third quarter of 2026 one of two offshore patrol vessels idle since 2021, the chief of the defence force said on Tuesday, at a cost running into millions of dollars.

Tony Davies told a select committee of parliament the decision to bring HMNZS Otago out of care and custody arrangements followed the embarrassing sinking of the specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, the Manawanui.

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“Before you put it back to sea, it has to have quite a bit of work and money spent on it,” Davies added. “It requires tens of millions of dollars.”

The Otago can operate in the country’s exclusive economic zone, the Southern Ocean and the Pacific, on tasks such as patrolling, surveillance, search and rescue, disaster relief and peacekeeping support, the defence force says on its website.

The ship was one of three idled in 2021 and 2022 as the military struggled to man them amid historically high levels of attrition that have since dropped off, with sufficient staff for the Otago after the Manawanui sinking.

Davies said the navy used satellites and uncrewed system to monitor a huge maritime area but the presence of a ship was indispensable to help monitor transnational serious organised crime and illegal fishing.

New Zealand’s government, which has committed to increase defence spending over the next eight years, has boosted deployments as tension grows worldwide.

Last month, its largest ship, the oiler Aotearoa, made a rare transit through the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)