Yet might only be a three-letter word, but it has plenty of power as far as Maia Roos is concerned.

The 19-year-old lock is only in her second year out of high school at Tāmaki College, where she was head girl, and she is already around the fringes of the Black Ferns on the back of a strong Farah Palmer Cup campaign with the Auckland Storm in 2020.

But this Saturday she is set to swap her Storm jersey for a Blues one, as the Super Rugby franchise stages a historic clash with the Chiefs at Eden Park – a match that will hopefully be a taste of things to come for the women’s game.

And as she spends the week in camp with some of her Storm team-mates, as well as new ones from Northland and North Harbour, Roos is looking to continue her journey of personal growth.

It was in a Q&A for her club, College Rifles, when asked what words she lives by, that she first touched on “the power of yet”.

“I think it’s cool how you can add the word ‘yet’ to the end of an otherwise negative thought, and it makes it sound attainable with a bit of effort, patience, and experience,” Roos replied.

“For example: ‘I can’t lift in the lineout, yet.”

It’s a well-worn philosophy, one espoused everywhere from Sesame Street to self-help books, but Roos’ adoption of it is a sure sign that she is someone who is going places.

Roos made her debut for the Storm in 2019 while she was still at school, then became a regular starter at lock alongside Black Ferns captain Eloise Blackwell in 2020, where the Storm lost in the semifinals to eventual champions Canterbury.

Her efforts in the Farah Palmer Cup earned her a callup for the Probables v Possibles match that followed, then for the New Zealand Barbarians side that played two games against the Black Ferns.

“That was real special,” Roos said this week.

“In the first game, when the Black Ferns were doing their haka, I was almost crying, and I was buzzing out, because I've looked up to them for so long.

“To be on the field, playing a team that I had looked up to for so long – that was real cool.”

What followed was even cooler – an invitation to a Black Ferns training camp at the start of this year.

“I was so excited,” Roos said.

“When I got the email, I ran to my mum, like, 'Mum, look! I just got invited to the Black Ferns camp.

“I'm just trying to make the most of the opportunities that I have and to never take any of them for granted, because with all the help I have through Auckland and my club, I feel like I have everything I need to succeed at the touch of my fingertips, so there's not really any reason that I shouldn't.”

Roos will only turn 20 towards the end of July, shortly after the start of the coming Farah Palmer Cup season, and she is one of many young players set to benefit from the launch of a women’s Super Rugby competition, which NZ Rugby is hoping will happen in 2022.

She said it had been great to see more opportunities coming the way of female athletes in recent years and was looking forward to potentially pulling on a Blues jersey again after Saturday’s maiden outing.

"I think we deserve to have these opportunities and deserve to be treated as professionals, with the amount of time that we spend training.

“I think it's been a long time coming, and it will be awesome to see it come to fruition.”

In the meantime, at Eden Park on Saturday, and in the weeks and months ahead, Roos will continue to grow, having made good progress on one of the things she recently acknowledged she couldn’t do – yet.

“I'm still learning to get better, but I've started lifting in lineouts now,” she said.

“That was one of the things I said last year that I couldn't do, but with the help of all the other girls and really putting my mind to it and trying and practising, it has been one of my areas of growth.”

In the background, there’s the forthcoming Rugby World Cup on home soil, which has been pushed back from September and October this year to 2022, a delay that has given up-and-coming players like Roos more time to improve and push their case.

“I'm still young, so there's still heaps of time,” she said of the prospect of playing for the Black Ferns.

“I hope that maybe this extra year will help me have time to build and grow into my body and to learn more and expand my knowledge and then hopefully I'll get a shot at biting at the ankles [of the incumbents] for a jersey."

Article from Andrew Voerman, Stuff Reporter: Click here