Blackwell first pulled on the blue and white in 2009 and, 17 years later, remains at the heart of a side increasingly shaped by a new generation. Her 100th appearance will also make her the sixth player in Farah Palmer Cup history to reach a century of matches in the competition.
The milestone reflects not just Blackwell's longevity but the change she has lived through during her time with the Storm. When she first joined Auckland, women's provincial rugby looked very different. The Women’s National Provincial Championship as it was known, was still in its early years, professionalism in the women's game was some way off, and Blackwell was one of a generation of young players who would go on to change the sport's landscape.
Blackwell was part of Auckland teams that dominated the national competition in the early part of her career, including the 2012 side that went unbeaten to claim the national title and the 2013 team that secured a sixth consecutive championship.
She has shared the field with some of the greats of Auckland and New Zealand women's rugby, including Fiao'o Fa'amausili, Emma Jensen, Justine Lavea, Aleisha Pearl Nelson and Aldora Itunu. Most of those players have since moved on. Blackwell has remained.
Her first major Auckland milestone came in 2023, when she captained the Storm in her 75th appearance. Two years later she reached 90, helping Auckland to an opening-round win over defending champions Waikato in 2025. Now, 10 games on, she is on the verge of a century.
It is fitting that Blackwell's career has continued to be intertwined with leadership. She first captained the Storm in 2020, and in 2023 led Auckland to its 16th Farah Palmer Cup title, ending an eight-year wait for the trophy.
That final against Canterbury remains one of the defining moments of her Auckland career. The Storm arrived in Christchurch as underdogs after losing to Canterbury during the round robin, but produced a 39-27 win to claim the Premiership title. Blackwell scored twice as Auckland secured its first title since 2015.
"It was a team that had a real belief in each other," she said afterwards.
The 2023 championship was another example of the role Blackwell has increasingly played within the Storm: bridging generations. The squad that lifted the trophy contained seasoned internationals alongside teenagers and players taking their first steps into provincial rugby. That has become a familiar theme of her Auckland career. In 2026 the Storm are again a relatively young group, with Blackwell providing experience to a side featuring a host of new faces. Ahead of this year's campaign, she described the influx of young players as an exciting sign of the depth within Auckland.
That evolution mirrors Blackwell's career away from the Storm. She has gone from a Great Barrier Island schoolgirl to a Black Fern, World Cup winner and professional player, while building a career as a teacher at Epsom Girls Grammar School, where she also coaches rugby. Her international career includes 46 Black Ferns appearances and the New Zealand captaincy, alongside her time in the Blues' Super Rugby Aupiki campaigns.
For all those international milestones, reaching 100 games for Auckland carries its own significance. It is the province where her senior career began, and where she has stayed through multiple generations of players, coaches and competition formats. In 2024 Blackwell reached her 150th first-class match, becoming the sixth woman in New Zealand to reach that mark. She has since passed 170 first-class appearances and sits second on the all-time New Zealand women's list.
The Storm century stands apart from those, though — every one of those hundred matches has been played in the same provincial colours. From the dominant Auckland teams of the early 2010s, through the emergence of the Farah Palmer Cup, the arrival of professional women's rugby and the growth of Super Rugby Aupiki, Blackwell has remained a constant.