Maggie Cogger-Orr: Meet the Canadian Ref Who is Officiating the Opening Match of the Women’s Rugby World Cup in October
[ed. thanks to Aaron McDonald who brought this story to our attention.]
Sure she’s listed as NZR in the World Rugby program to denote she’s representing NZ Rugby but she’s Canadian, she travelled to NZ on a student visa in 2014 to start a new adventure and ended up staying there, well except for the trips back home to visit family at Christmas.
Maggie Cogger-Orr is as Canadian as they come, an unabashed Toronto Maple Leafs fan, she’s even used the hashtags, #goleafsgo and #bleedblue on her social media accounts [shudder]. But that’s Canada for you, we’re accepting of all views, no matter how wrong they are.
She attended Ashbury College in Ottawa where she was the lone girl on the boys football team, we’re talking gridiron football here, not soccer. That’s when she met Jen Boyd who is a teacher at Ashbury College. The article in Woman Magazine NZ goes on to explain:
A brief moment in high school with a rugby legend changed the trajectory of Maggie Cogger-Orrs life. A then naive 12-year-old, Maggie was playing gridiron in Canada when a women approached her after a team practice.Her name was Jen Boyd, recalls Maggie, who is now one of this countrys rising rugby referees. She was the hooker for the Canadian national rugby team. She is now the coach at the University of Ottawa and is probably the most decorated coach in the history of womens rugby in Canada.
Jen told Maggie she needed to play rugby for her. So, four or five months later, I showed up to play rugby and just fell in love with it, says the now 30-year-old, who moved here from Canada seven years ago to continue playing and attend teachers college.
Maggie went on to play rugby for McMaster University while Jen became the head coach of the University of Ottawa.
In 2015 Maggie played for the College Rifles team in NZ and then for the Auckland rep side Auckland Thunder. By 2017 she was reffing the finals of the Auckland Women’s Premier competition and making her debut at the Farah Palmer Cup final. By 2020 she had 20 Farah Palmer Cup matches under her belt and was regularly officiating men’s games as well. In April 2022 she made her test debut at Cardiff Arms Park officiating the Wales v France women’s 6 Nations match. In August of this year she was voted the Club Premier Referee of the Year by the men’s Premier teams.
On Saturday October 8th, she’ll be entering Eden Park in Auckland to be the referee of the opening World Cup match, South Africa v France. Quite a journey for the high school student from Ashbury College in Ottawa.
You can follow her instagram account at @maggieseeoh