Botille's journey from bare feet to the big time

In the first of our special 'Telstra Hersday' series on the stars of the women's game, NRL.com talks to Wests Tigers co-captain Botille Vette-Welsh about her hopes and dreams, her heritage and the unique path she trod from New Zealand’s picturesque Northland region to the NRLW.

When Botille Vette-Welsh closes her eyes and walks barefoot across the blades of perfectly trimmed stadium grass, she is taken back to the tiny seaside village of Taipa in Doubtless Bay.

Memories flood back of tackling her three brothers in the backyard to warm up for the weekend’s rugby match or running laps of the local athletics track in her bare feet.

She remembers racing out of the classroom and onto the beach to feel the soft sand between her toes and singing Māori hymns as she wandered along the quiet roads.

When the bright lights and big crowds all feel a little too much, whipping the boots off is how the Wests Tigers fullback finds her way back home.

“At training or before a game at the stadium, I still often get a little bit overwhelmed with the whole experience and what I'm lucky enough to live with,” Vette-Welsh told NRL.com as part of the Telstra 'Hersday' series.

“By taking my shoes off and touching the grass, it brings me back down to earth and reminds me that no matter where I am in the world or how flash a place is, if I can still be one with the earth, then I’m right back to when I was a young girl playing footy in bare feet.

“It brings me back to why I love the game and why I play the game, I guess.

Grass is grass and no matter where it is in the world, if it's real grass, you can feel your connection back to your home and people

Botille Vette-Welsh

"Māori people and Pacific Islanders, we have a massive connection with Papatūānuku, which is the earth.

“In life, if things are getting a bit crazy and I get a little bit overwhelmed, I can be humbled quite as easily just by standing on grass.”

When Vette-Welsh was 14, her parents relocated to Parramatta for more opportunities in sport and education.

Vette-Welsh’s father Alfred was the first to head across the Tasman after earning a coaching scholarship at the AIS then her mum Diane, and older brother Dayne met him in Parramatta in 2010.

Moving from a village of less than 200 people to the bright lights of Sydney came as a big cultural adjustment for Vette-Welsh, and wearing shoes took some getting used to as well.

“We didn't go to school with any shoes in New Zealand and we also didn’t play sport with any shoes,” Vette-Welsh said.

“I actually got my first pair of shoes for my birthday when I got to Australia and they were these army print pink vans and I was so impressed by how flash these shoes were.

“I took them with me to training to show everyone but I left them near the goalposts while we were training and the mower man went straight over my new shoes.

“It was a lesson not to buy expensive shoes because they can just get taken from you so quickly (she chuckled).”

From her first pair of shoes to an adidas sponsored athlete, the 27-year-old speedster never looked back after her first introduction to rugby league in Australia.

By 2019, she had made her State of Origin debut for New South Wales and represented the Jillaroos in the Trans-Tasman Test in October, quickly becoming one of the NRLW’s biggest stars.

But since going down with an ACL injury in 2022, the Wests Tigers co-captain has faced an ongoing battle with form and mental health.

“I had done my ACL before when I was younger, but everything kind of bounced back much easier when you're 16 compared to when you're 26,” she said.

“Mentally, it was a massive struggle because I expected to have surgery, train hard and then be back to exactly where I was before and when that wasn't the case, I really struggled in my mind on what is wrong with me and why I’m not as good as I was.

“But time has been the best remedy for me. I'm much lighter than I was last year so that's good and being able to do a pre-season without being in and out because of injury has been the best blessing.”

Ready to lead her new-look Wests Tigers side when the 2024 NRLW season kicks off this week, the Māori All Star knows she still has a long road ahead to go to get back to her best but remains proud of the role she continues to play in the women’s space.

“You have to be working hard to be greater no matter what team you're in. I would love to be back in those kinds of rep systems again, but that will come when I work hard enough and when I play well enough,” she said.

"To see the talent that's coming through and to see how strong each side, like the Origin sides and how strong the Jillaroos are, is exciting because you know you can't be comfortable with just being good.

“I’ve just been trying to focus on being one of the old heads in the group, and there’s been times where I've gone and helped an Under 14s local girls team out west and to see now some of those girls in the same team as me, it gives you that really cool feeling of 'look what I've been able to help create'.

“Everything we do outside of the game and in the game, there's a reason for it and now these young girls coming through who are nipping at our heels is exactly how we know that we've done a good job.

“I think that's my purpose now, to learn as much as I can at the top and start to filter that through and give that back to our young girls so they don't have to wait until they make a rep team to learn the basics of footy."

The Jillaroos fullback said when she walks on to Campbelltown Sports Stadium this Sunday to face the Raiders, she'll pause to think about the barefoot girl from New Zealand's far north.

"When I’ve got my feet in the grass, I still look up and think, ‘Oh my gosh, 20 years ago I was standing on a rugby field, no shoes on with the exact same feeling that I have right now," she said.

“It's 20-plus years and I still have the same love for the game, the same purpose for why I play and I'm having the same fun as I did when I was six-years-old.”