Jayson Hooker only intended to fill in temporarily after his wife’s injury, but three years later he is captaining New Zealand’s Wheelchair Rugby League side on the road to the World Cup.

NEW Zealand’s first-ever wheelchair captain Jayson Hooker has started the year well after playing for the Australian Armed Forces against their visitors from the UK.

The matches were full of drama, with the Australians eventually winning 48-46 thanks to a last-minute Brett Bazlin penalty, with the UK side containing players such as Leeds Rhinos coach and World Cup winner James Simpson-Hill, and current Super League player Steve Sampson.

“The whole experience was unreal,” Hooker said.

“We put our team together at pretty short notice, which was unfortunate. But it was a hell of an experience.

“The UK Armed Forces side were really good. They’d already beaten South-East Queensland, so we knew what kind of side they were. It was a tight game, but we won by just two points.

“It was great for them to come over, experience Anzac Day and the commemorations. We went down to the dawn service, which was awesome too. One of the UK players said it was probably one of the best services they’ve ever been to, so it was awesome that they got to experience that. They said they had a great time with everything they did.”

The 37-year-old got involved in wheelchair rugby league through his wife, but now, as she has a knee injury and can no longer play, he has taken over the mantle for the family.

“My wife actually started playing about five years ago after she had a below-knee amputation. I came across wheelchair rugby league by accident, so I got her involved and stayed out of it. And then, she aggravated damage to her knee and couldn’t actually get in the chair. It was really bad.

“So, I said that I’d jump in and just fill in while she couldn’t play. That was nearly three years ago and I haven’t stopped since.

Then, at the end of 2024, Hooker, thanks to his New Zealand-born father, was not only selected for that nation’s first couple of matches, both at home against Australia, but also captained the side in the first.

Both ended up being big defeats to the more experienced Australians, and the Wheel Kiwis haven’t played a full international since, but they’ve not been inactive.

“It was a massive honour to captain New Zealand, and I definitely didn’t expect it, especially being so new to the sport,” he said.

“Then last year, we played in the Australian national championships against state-based teams. It was probably the right thing to do after those two defeats, to get back to basics, but still be in competitive rugby. We won three out of six, so it wasn’t too bad.

“We were missing a lot of players from the original matches in Auckland, so we had a lot of new guys that had never played before, or it was just their second time playing.

“There’s no real local competition in New Zealand; there are not enough of us to do that, but the players over there will come over to Australia again for the nationals.

“But unfortunately, we just don’t have the opportunities to get that competitive or proper match-play experience, which makes it less than ideal coming into a World Cup, especially seeing a lot of the preparation that the sides in Europe are doing.

“We’ll have a camp prior to the World Cup, and I think at this stage that might be in New Zealand, before going back to our Aussie base.”

Just like in the men’s World Cup, New Zealand’s campaign will start against Australia, something that Hooker says neither side really wanted.

With France hot favourites to win the group, a loss against the Wheelaroos could mean their World Cup hopes could effectively be over after day one, but with the Wheelchair tournament running consolation play-offs and ranking matches, there would still be all to play for. He also believes that his side are under no pressure at all to perform well, which could work in their favour.

“I don’t think Australia want to go up against us first and we don’t want to go up against them first,” he said. “But that’s the draw and we have to prepare as much as we can.

“Speaking for a lot of the other New Zealand guys, we’re most excited about Scotland. They’ll be lower down the table, so it feels like we might be a bit more competitive, and with that being our last game of the pool stage as well, it means that we will have had a bit of time to mesh together better, and we should be starting to get into our group a bit.

“So, personally, I think that’ll probably be our most competitive match, and because we have ranking play-offs as well as the major semi-finals, that makes it all really interesting.

“And I think the fact that we are so new, and all of our players are very new, gives us a bit of an advantage because we’re coming in with no expectations, so that takes a lot of pressure off us.

“I can just imagine the pressure on France and England, who have been around longer. They’ve both been so good for so long that there’s a lot of stress, whereas we have the benefit of there being no expectation. We’re just coming into the sport.

“The only real pressure we have is what we put on ourselves, right? And we’re just going to go out there and do the best we can.”

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 521 (June 2026)