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A National Provincial Championship semi-final this coming Friday night in Wellington, between the Wellington Lions and Auckland.
Two Heartland Championship semi-finals in the lower North Island this coming Saturday sees the Whanganui Butcher Boys host the Thames Valley Swampfoxes in their Meads Cup top four semi-final and Horowhenua-Kapiti host Ngati Porou East Coast in Levin in their Lochore Cup 5-8 semi-final. Both matches kick-off at 2.30pm.
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East Coast will play for a Trophy in the Heartland Championship for the first time since they won the Meads Cup in 2012. Hosea Gear is the coach of the team. He scored 36 tries in 58 games for Wellington and 26 in 70 for the Hurricanes.
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The All Blacks XV squad is expected to be announced later this afternoon, ahead of their tour to play matches against Ireland A and the Barbarians. This one could be interesting and where supporters of the NPC can get enthused over.
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The All Blacks squad announcement for the Japan and European tour on Sunday afternoon would be the most low-key and boring of all time. Only two injury recovered players were recalled and there was no press except for a video by Ian Foster attached to the media release.
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New Zealand Under 18 Quadrangular Tournament in Hamilton this week:
Tuesday 11 October
NZ Barbarians vs. Fiji Schools – 12.30pm
NZ Māori Under 18 vs. NZ Secondary Schools – 2.30pm
Saturday 15 October
NZ Barbarians vs. NZ Māori U18 – 12.30pm
NZ Secondary Schools vs. Fiji Schools – 2.30pm
Livestream Link: https://www.facebook.com/nzrugbyofficial
A shame the NZ Secondary Schools and NZ Barbarians teams don’t play each other.
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Just a handful of players named in the squads above, headlined by Wellington College’s Stanley Solomon, so there is this year’s College Sport Wellington Rugby Player of the Year Boys winner. The Girls winner will be interesting though – of whom a number are currently playing rugby league and have recently been selected in various NZRL U16 and U18 teams.
Plus a couple of club players such as Upper Hutt Rams wing Tyrone Maraku, selected in the NZ Māori Under 18 squad.
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A group of current and former Wellington club rugby identities around the mayoralty tables of the lower North Island, including WRRA referee Campbell Barry being returned as Lower Hutt Mayor, former Upper Hutt coach Wayne Guppy being returned as Upper Hutt mayor, former Marist St Pat’s centre Bernie Wanden being returned as Horowhenua mayor, former Wests midfielder now TV commentator Ken Laban returned for the Wellington Regional Council, Norths and Black Ferns wing Izzy Ford being returned to the Porirua City Council and a possible second tilt at the deputy’s chains.
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Unconfirmed reports that Wellington Rugby’s community awards are being held on Tuesday this week.
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A couple of laments received already that now the Phoenix season has started the Dominion Post newspaper sports section reverts to the the Soccer Times. That’s sad. Perhaps the one-sport reporter needs to ‘find a room’ and start his own publication and call it Club Football and clear the decks for other sports coverage?
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Some Sevens Tournaments coming up at a glance – more details to come:
The Sevens season is fast approaching. Some tournaments/dates we are aware of that we can help promote and cover:
- 22 October: Wellington Samoan Rugby Union 50th Year celebrations and matches at Porirua Park (15s rugby, not sevens).
- 24 October (Labour Day Monday): College Sport Wellington Condor 7s.
- 29 October: WRFU U21/Colts 7s tournament
- 5 November: WRFU Men’s/Women’s American Ambassador’s 7s Leg 1
- 12 November: WRFU Men’s/Women’s American Ambassador’s 7s Leg 2
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Wellington Lions top five point scorers:
- Allan Hewson 893 points (108 matches)
- John Gallagher 797 (88)
- Mick Williment 748 (108)
- Jon Preston 682 (73)
- Jackson Garden-Bachop 678 (87)
- Simon Mannix 648 (83)
- David Holwell 615 (61)
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The kind bounce and the try in the corner to Ruben Love (see the headline photo to this article too):
That bounce! 😮
#BunningsNPC | @WgtnRugby | @skysportnz pic.twitter.com/jHtzIvhTaQ— Bunnings NPC (@BunningsNPC) October 8, 2022
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The Women’s Rugby World Cup is like a G-Rated Sevens.
Keira Bevan kicked a 30-metre penalty in the 86th minute to give Wales an 18-15 win over Scotland at the World Cup. Wales won the penalty after 24 phases of attack and the 55kg halfback in her 44th test nailed the goal. She told the BBC:
“As soon as the referee’s arm went out for a penalty, I kind of in the back of my head thought we were in kicking range.
“When it was officially given, we had a bit of a debate on the field about who was kicking it and I made a bit of song and dance about it!
“The message came on that if I was confident to let me take it, and I was striking them well in the warm-up.
“First of all I couldn’t look. I knew I had struck it well as soon as it left my boot.
“As soon as the final whistle went, I got swamped. I didn’t know whether to be happy.”
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Will be interesting to see if the Black Ferns rest and rotate either Portia Woodman or Ruby Tui for their next match against Wales this coming weekend? If so, the Welsh outside backs could be breating a sigh of relief after their display against Australia. That is until Ayesha Leti-l’iga starts running at them.
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Asinate Serevi is the daughter of Fijian sevens legend Waisale Serevi, who represented his country at three Rugby World Cups, in 1991, 1999 and 2003, earning 38 test caps.
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Emily Scarratt is England’s all-time leading point scorer with 718. She was the Rugby World Cup 2014 top-point scorer with 70, and in this year’s Women’s Six Nations with 39. She played her 100th test against Ireland in April 2022.
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With three tries in the Black Ferns opening 41-17 World Cup victory over Australia, Portia Woodman replaced Vanessa Cootes as the Black Ferns leading try scorer at the World Cup with 16 tries in five games. Cootes scored 13 tries in six games, including a record five in the 44-12 victory over the USA in the 1998 final.
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The Black Ferns have scored 251 tries in 33 World Cup Tests. The most tries in a single World Cup match is 22 by the Black Ferns against Germany in 1998.
The Black Ferns have scored 49 tries in 7 Tests under Wayne Smith, 28 of those tries have been scored in the second-half.
The Black Ferns only trailed at halftime in a World Cup match for the second time against Australia,
England beat Fiji 84-19 to open the World Cup. England’s biggest win of all-time is 101-0 v South Africa in 2005. Their highest World Cup winning margin is 82-0 over Kazakhstan in 2014.
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Check out my first sneaker drop designed and engineered by me… Been working on this plus future drops for a while now. Excited to share it with you all. https://t.co/c9XfCa1NG5 pic.twitter.com/o5sPWZ0o3d
— Neemia Tialata (@NeemiaTialata) October 6, 2022
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This is interesting, but NZR could be tokenising their own brand, their own players:
It is also obvious that an outfit like NZR should be looking into starting a Web 3-based social arm
Or an organisation like the Hurricanes could be doing this.
There is quite a bit online to read about this space, but here is one article: https://decrypt.co/resources/what-are-fan-tokens-crypto-assets-that-give-fans-a-voice
Like everything else finance related the digital asset space has cooled off considerably this year after its growth and hype phase in 2020 and 2021, but Web 3 and the blockchain is not a passing fad. This is how ‘online’ elections should be run in the future too (but that is another subject). This is all for the future, a bit like getting websites up and running in the mid-1990s.
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First Individual Try Scorers in Men’s Rugby World Cup:
- 1987: Michael Jones, Flanker (All Blacks)
- 1991: Michael Jones, Flanker (All Blacks)
- 1995: Pieter Hendriks, Winger (South Africa)
- 1999: Colin Charvis, Flanker (Wales)
- 2003: Wendell Sailor Winger(Australia)
- 2007: Ignacio Corleto, Winger (Argentina)
- 2011: Israel Dagg, Fullback (All Blacks)
- 2015: Mike Brown, Fullback (England)
- 2019: Kotaro Matsushima, Winger (Japan)
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The rugby year’s still going, but re-live the season thus far in photos here: https://clubrugby.smugmug.com/2022
