Marata's supporting role 'NIKKI'S THE REAL WARRIOR'

The league star pays tribute to his soulmate who lives with a painful condition

- Fiona Terry

When Warriors player Marata Niukore feels the strain from a tough training session, there’s one person in particular he looks to for inspiration to power on – his partner Nikki Johns.

The former national swimmer and water polo player has been battling inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) since she was 17, and Marata says whatever pain he’s experiencing is put into perspective by what she endures daily.

“I go out and do my job, which is tough on the body, but my pain compared to hers is on a totally different level,” he says. “I get to recover and get my body right to go, but she doesn’t have that.”

Nikki was swimming competitively when she started to become ill. Repeated bouts of tonsillitis didn’t stop her training, neither did stomach pains which had been rumbling for a few months. The pains didn’t cease after an operation to remove a swollen appendix and when another severe stretch of tonsillitis wouldn’t resolve, Nikki was hospitalised.

“I was in the worst pain of my life,” she recalls. “I couldn’t get up offthe hospital bed to go to the toilet and called my mum crying. She came straight away and knew it was serious.”

An ultrasound scan revealed a problem with her colon.

“They explained that three- quarters of my large intestine was sick,” says Nikki, who was rushed in for emergency surgery after symptoms quickly worsened and the damaged section of her colon was removed. “I remember the first time I opened my eyes and saw where they’d needed to cut me. Then I spotted the colostomy bag and I bawled my eyes out.”