Month: January 2019

  30 August 1919 was a watershed date in New Zealand provincial rugby. For the first time since September 1914, the Ranfurly Shield was put on the line. Introduced in 1904, the Ranfurly Shield had grown to be the pre-eminent prize in the domestic game, but with the outbreak of war in September

“AN UNENTHUSIASTIC PLAYER IS BETTER ON THE BANK” The Karori Rugby Football Club (1876-1983) By Gordon Noble-Campbell. The No. 1 field at Ian Galloway (formerly “Western”) Park, locally and colloquially known as “the Cage”, has been the scene of many titanic battles of the Western Suburbs Rugby Football Club, arguably Wellington’s most important

The Senior Championship club rugby competition 100 years ago was every bit as thrilling as it is today. Crowds of up to several thousand regularly watched club matches at Athletic Park and further afield at venues such as Duppa St Park (now the site of a WCC plant nursery and a

The end of World War One ushered in a brief golden age for Wellington rugby. Wellington was the Ranfurly Shield holder throughout the war and defended the shield 15 times in 1919 and 1920 – including taking it on tour and brazenly putting it up in away matches – while the