Jorja Miller (born 8 February 2004) is a New Zealand rugby union player. She plays fifteen-a-side and seven-a-side rugby union, and is a member of the New Zealand Women's Sevens team.
Early life
Miller was born on 8 February 2004 in Timaru to Tracey and Craig Miller. She has two older brothers, Corin and Deon. Her grandfather and father played for Timaru based Harlequins seniors rugby team (her father playing more than 200 games) while her mother was a member of the South Canterbury women's team. Miller’s older brothers also play rugby.
Following in the footsteps of her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother Miller at the age of four began highland dancing. She eventually went on to become an age group national champion in her favourite dance, Sailor’s Hornpipe. In 2021 she participated in the under 18 national championships.
Miller also played basketball for a period.
Miller initially attended Timaru Girls' High School before moving to Christchurch Girls' High School as a boarder in 2019 in the hope that that by playing girls' club rugby with the High School Old Boys Club she would more consistently be participating in a higher level of play and also gain exposure that could result in her being selected for the Black Ferns Sevens team.
Rugby career
She began playing rugby at the age of four with her brother in a Timaru Harlequins Rugby Football Club boys’ team. In 2015 she was captain of the Timaru Harlequins Rugby Football Club’s under 12 team and was one of only two girls to make the South Island under 48 kg side. In 2016 she was once again captain of the Harlequins team and was a member of the under 65kg South Island team.
She was a member of every South Canterbury age group rugby team until at the age of 13 she became ineligible to play mixed rugby and switched from playing for Harlequins to playing only for Timaru Girls' High School team and regional girls teams.
In 2017 Miller played for Timaru Girl’s High School in the fifteen-a-side Aoraki secondary schoolgirls competition. The team lost 60-42 to a combined Mt Hutt-Ashburton college in the final despite Miller scoring three tries.
Alongside the Te Moananui triplets, Miller (who by now had acquired the nickname “Scooter”) was a member of the Hanan Shield secondary schoolgirls rugby team which competed at the South Island secondary schoolgirls rugby tournament at Christchurch in 2017. The youngest player at the event she was named the most valuable player and captain of the tournament team.
Until she moved to Christchurch Millar mainly played the fifteen-a-side rugby as an open-side flanker with only occasional games of sevens, such as a game in 2018 for South Canterbury against Mid-Canterbury at a girl’s under-15 sevens tournament.
Despite not being Dutch she toured Europe in 2018 with a New Zealand Dutch under-18 girls Invitational New Zealand Dutch Barbarians Sevens team. Five of the 11 members in the team had never played sevens rugby before. In the six months prior to their departure Miller had to make monthly trips north to Whangarei to attend team training. As the Barbarian's schedule clashed she was unable to be a member of the Aoraki team (formerly the Hanan Shield team) that competed in the that years South Island secondary schoolgirls rugby tournament. The Barbarian's first games were in London against the Cobham Rugby Club which they won 60-0, 40-0 and 32-0 despite some of the New Zealanders playing for Cobham in the final game of the series. They then attended the Amsterdam International Quadrangular under-18 girls' tournament in the Netherlands they played against the Nemos, who were the Dutch club champions and the national U18 teams of Sweden and the Netherlands. The team won all their group games on the first day in Amstelveen, before at the second date of competition at the National Rugby Centre in Amsterdam beating Holland 26-17 and the Nemos 47-0 in the semi-finals despite losing two members of the team to injuries. They then beat Holland in the final, 26-10.
Condor competition
In 2019 she was a member of the Christchurch Girl’s High team that won the National Condor Sevens title. In the semi-final against reigning championships Hamilton Girls’ High School Miller after earlier being sin-binned scored the winning try in extra time following a 80 metres sprint to the line. In the final she scored four tries in her team’s 29-14 win over Howick College from Auckland.