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There are two weeks left in the Jubilee Cup and Hardham Cup competitions before the semi-finals and, if you count Petone (need calculators to come out) there are still six teams chasing four spots for the playoffs in both competitions. Plus home semi-finals need to be earned. Similarly, the Division 1 Colts competition is also on tenterhooks, aided by OBU and MSP being docked 6 points last week.
The rugby continues in earnest this week. Here is what is on below, thanks to our friends at the WRRA for their draw in the image below.
The games at Wellington College are the annual Quadrangular tournament, between Wellington College, Christ’s College, Nelson College and Whanganui Collegiate.
UPDATE: Nelson College beat Christ’s College 26-14 and Whanganui Collegiate beat Wellington College 32-5 on Monday.
Thus Nelson and Whanganui will meet in the final on Wednesday and Wellington College and Christ’s will contest the 3 v 4 match.
- In edition to this, a Wellington XV is playing a Tasman Mako selection at the Hutt Rec on Wednesday at 2.30pm.
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UPDATE 2: The Wellington XV to play Tasman on Wednesday at the Hutt Rec at 2.30pm is:
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While Wellington still has two weeks to run, other provinces have already reached their playoff stage.
In Taranaki Coastal finished top qualifiers and they’ll face defending champions New Plymouth Old Boys who snuck into the top four, while the second semi is a city derby between Spotswood United and Tukapa and hopefully that isnt marred by the same scenes as their last meeting.
In the Manawatu the Hankins Shield semifinals will be hosted by College Old Boys and Feilding Yellows. Already qualified, the pair warmed up by playing out a 34-all draw on Saturday with COB to face Massey University after the students eliminated defending champs Feilding Old Boys-Oroua, with Feilding to take on Old Boys Marist.
There’s a week to go in both Hawke’s Bay and Horowhenua-Kapiti.
In Hawke’s Bay Napier Old Boys Marist, Taradale, and Hastings will battle over the top 3 seeds, with Havelock North guaranteed to finish fourth, while up the coast Waikanae will host one semi-final, Foxton or Rahui to host the other, and resurgent Shannon needing just a point in the final round to knock defending champions Toa out.
In the Hawke’s Bay, former St Pat’s Town fullback Saia Paese scored 5 tries and shcool teammate Hannon Brighouse 2 tries in Napier Old Boys Marist’s 90-31 win over Clive.
The Wairarapa Bush competition has two weeks left to run.
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What was Radio Sport thinking on Saturday, in Wellington in Christchurch. They pulled their afternoon local sports shows in favour of netball. What netball? The Silver Ferns versus the Men’s Ferns in an exhibition/warm-up match. How to kill a local audience 101.
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The biggest pest at the breakdown in Wellington club rugby? There are several contenders, but Short Passes likes the work of Northern United Women’s openside flanker Leah Conley, who is in to everything all the time!
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On the subject of the Pride, it has been a disrupted women’s club season with numerous defaults this year, but some of the rugby has still been high quality. It will be interesting to see the make-up of this year’s Pride squad when it comes out. Norths and Ories meet this coming weekend in their third match of the year so should be another cracker.
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A strong possibility of some star power playing club rugby this weekend – watch this space over the next couple of days.
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Some individual player milestones from the past week in the Jubilee and Hardham Cups. Tawa’s Tolu Fahamokioa raised a century of Premier appearances for the Lyndhurst side when we came off the bench in their 48-24 win over Poneke. OBU’s Junior Makepelu brought up 50 outings for the Goats when he did likewise in their win over Johnsonville, and after several seasons away Norths’ Campbell Woodmass played his blazer (35th) game.
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Congratulations to Jamie Fairmaid for refereeing his 50th Premier match on Saturday in Wellington.
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Congratulations to Ories hooker Fuamai Taumoli for playing her 50th Women’s club rugby match and to Poneke’s Poneke’s Molly Moananu for reaching the same mark.
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Sonny Bill Williams played 54 minutes of Premier club rugby for Ponsonby against Grammar Tec in Auckland on Saturday, and is planning on playing for them again this coming weekend ahead of the All Blacks squad naming to travel to Argentina to start the Rugby Championship.
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The Waisake Naholo chants reverberated around the club rugby fields of Dunedin on Saturday, with the All Blacks wing wearing the 14 jersey for Harbour RFC against Kaikorai and helping them to a 43-14 win.
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The Black Ferns opened their campaign in San Diego with a 35-20 win over Canada on Saturday. Congratulations to Joanah Ngan-Woo for her upcoming debut in their second match of the series against the USA on Wednesday (NZT). She comes off the bench and joins Ories teammate and starting left wing Ayesha Leti-I’iga in the team.
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Crusaders players Richie Mo’unga and George Bridge won’t face action after an investigation found allegations of misconduct during the team’s tour to South Africa could not be substantiated.
In a statement, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) announced that it had asked the franchise to review their protocols for post-match activity. Bridge and Mo’unga were accused of inappropriate behaviour during the Crusaders’ tour of South Africa in May. Mo’unga was accused of spitting beer at a woman in a Cape Town bar and inappropriately touching her. Bridge was accused of homophobic behaviour in a McDonald’s restaurant in the same city.
Great timing bringing this out in the week of the Super Rugby final!
