Sideline Conversions 15 May (some rugby news and information to start the week)

Helston Park on Saturday afternoon. An article by ‘Touchline’ at the bottom about the origins of the park and surrounding area. 

And just like that, we are halfway through the 2023 Swindale Shield.

Round 8 of 14 this coming Saturday. Matches this coming weekend at a glance:

+++++

Wellington college rugby starts this week.

The First XV competition draw is imminent (today), and the competition starts this coming Wednesday at 1.00pm (note kick-off time is as listed at the time of publication) at Evans Bay Park between the St Pat’s Town and Wellington College First XVs. Both have had patchy pre-seasons but this match promises to be as well-contested as ever.

The Premier 1 and 2 girls competitions also starts this week, with a double round-robin format in two pools of four teams and the final on 28 June.

+++++

It was raining tries at Kilbirnie Park in the early matches on the #1 and #2 fields. On the main ground, Poneke’s Premier 2s beat Avalon 84-5 and on the adjacent field, the Upper Hutt Rams Colts defeated their Poneke opposites 86-10.

+++++

Toby Crosby‘s streak of scoring a try in every Swindale Shield game he plays in ended at seven against Petone when he went tryless, while Stanley Solomon extended his to four.

+++++

Monica Tagoai has scored 65 tries in 55 matches for the MSP Women’s side.

+++++

Upper Hutt Rams flyhalf Tynan Barrett became the first player to pass 100 points for the season on Saturday, his 20-point haul against Petone sending him to 113 points in the Swindale Shield thus far.

+++++

In 20 years of covering club rugby in Wellington, we have never seen a Marist St Pat’s Premier side being opened up so effortlessly and ruthlessly in such a short space of time, not at home anyway. MSP have some injury problems, which also plagued them last year, but visitors Hutt Old Boys Marist have had their issues too to start this season. They scored six tries in about 20 minutes to go from 0-0 to 38-0. They won 59-24.

+++++

Two successive lightning starts for Upper Hutt Rams halfback Kaide McCashin. He scored from the kick-off last weekend against Hutt Old Boys Marist and scored two tries in that game, while this week he scored a try in the opening minute and also scored two tries.

+++++

It went  unreported on Saturday night, four tries to Norths fullback Jaxon Poutama on Saturday. Also four tries to HOBM’s Sapati Tagoai and OBU’s Kyle Preston. Preston is now the competition’s leading try-scorer with 9 tries. 

+++++

A two-way tie at the top of the Colts standings after a month of matches between last year’s finalists, Petone and HOBM. Both are on 20 competition points.

+++++

Leaders the OBU Scallywags are on a maximum 25 points after their first five matches of the JC Bowl competition.

+++++

A bombshell has been dropped on Hawke’s Bay rugby with the resignation of Magpies head coach and former Hutt Old Boys Marist Director of Rugby Josh Syms just 12 weeks from the start of the 2023 National Provincial Championship.

But the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union has gone for the seamless approach, with the appointment to the job of Brock James, deputy for the last year and acting head coach during Syms’ off-season stint with US Major League Rugby side Old Glory DC.

The announcement, made in a Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union media release, was embargoed until 6am today, with Syms still in the US and soon headed for a two-year stint with multi-nations United Rugby Championship side and Italian club Zebre.

Read more HERE

+++++

It’s the Johnsonville Cripples and the Upper Hutt Rams J8s out in front together and each on a maximum 25 competition points after the opening five rounds of the 15-team Reserve Grade Mike Copeland Cup on Saturday.

Both these teams compiled the same amount of points in their wins on Saturday. The Cripples beat the Paremata-Plimmerton Punters 47-12 and the J8s defeated Petone 47-26.

+++++

Brothers to play 100 Super Games: Jannie and Bismarck du Plessis, Colby and Saia Fainga’a, Rieko and Akira Ioane, Owen and Ben Franks, Julian and Ardie Savea, Sam and Luke Whitelock and Beauden and Scott Barrett.

+++++

+++++

A hat-trick for Hurricanes captain Ardie Savea against Moana Pasifika on Saturday.

+++++

A sparse crowd at the Stadium on Saturday afternoon and little sign of the crowd decked out in club livery. Perhaps because Wellington’s senior club players were walking off the field after their games as the Hurricanes game was just about to start. And the Johnsonville and Paremata-Plimmerton players were still playing owing to a delayed start in their game. It’s a shame, as Moana Pasifika could be a big attraction in the capital given the large and vibrant Pasifika rugby playing and supporting population.

+++++

If one key purpose of sports websites of professional teams is to provide results, where can you find these on the Hurricanes website? Even abbreviated match reports with basic match and scoring details? And posted within 30-60 minutes after fulltime, not on Monday mornings.

+++++

The tackle count after 15 minutes of the Blues v Crusaders game was 71-2 against the visitors and then Beauden Barrett does a shallow jab kick which turns over possession close to halfway. What is going on with Barrett? His kicking game is largely aimless and ineffective. A champion player well below his best.

+++++

The New Zealand Universities Men’s team is travelling to Japan next week. The side will play a warm up match against Kansai RFU in Osaka on the 24th May. Followed by a match against the Japan U20s side on the 27th May.

Players selected from the lower North Island are:

Samson Koneferenisi (OBU), Nick Grogan (Massey), Julian Goerke (Massey), Te Wehi Wright (OBU) and Ty Poe (OBU).

+++++

The Poneke flag on the Kilbirnie Park clubrooms was flying at half-mast on Saturday, for the Tui family, including recent premiers Hennie and Sam, as well as Hemi (early 2000s and former club captain Fafetai Tui), who had their grandfather pass away.

+++++

A well contested match on the Paraparaumu Domain on Saturday on Old Timers’ Day for the home side, who missed out 29-34 to Waikanae in the battle of the expressway. The other two Horowhenua-Kapiti Ramsbotham Cup games saw Rahui beat Shannon 33-15 and Foxton defeat Levin Wanderers 40-30.

+++++

We are saddened to share the news of the passing of legendary All Black and Counties Manukau Rugby icon Bruce Roberston.

Our love and thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.

More: https://t.co/JIo1ADTwUd pic.twitter.com/nnJHfV35xJ

— CountiesRugby (@CountiesRugby) May 13, 2023

+++++

In Hawke’s Bay, Napier Old Boys Marist raised the century on Saturday. NOBM beat Aotea 101-36. So a losing bonus point for Aotea after conceding that many points. They scored 15 tries, with one player scoring 4. Elsewhere former Wainuiomata and Lions flanker Sam Smith scored 4 tries for Havelock North in their 57-15 win over Tamatea.

+++++

Updated after this Saturday – three players with four tries:

Most tries in a Wellington Premier club rugby match (since 2006)

Watching the “Hawks” and the “Hammerheads” engage in a tit-for-tat battle at Helston on Saturday afternoon gave Touchline “pause for thought” on how Wellington’s rugby clubs express the “turangawaewae” of their local communities.

When Frank Johnson arrived in Wellington as a landowner aboard the Adelaide in 1840, he had no idea where the 100 acre “country section” he had purchased in London (at 1 pound per acre, with his grandfather’s inheritance) would be located, or that it would become the site of a settlement based on the values of hard work, sacrifice and opportunity that he brought with him to New Zealand.

Nor did Johnson appreciate that when his section was allocated to him two years later by the New Zealand Land Company in 1842, that it would comprise forty to fifty trees per acre, ranging in size from nine to twenty-four feet in circumference. It was estimated at the time, the cost of clearing every acre of land for agricultural use was six to twelve times the cost of the land itself.

By the time that Frank Johnson left New Zealand permanently in 1848, he had cleared the land (largely located on the eastern side of Moorerfield Road in the area known as “Kinapora”  or Kenepuru) of trees and vegetation, with the area initially becoming known as “Johnson’s Clearing”.

The early development of Wesleyan and Anglican church communities in the area under the missionary leadership of the controversial Rev. Henry Williams, led to the area briefly becoming known as “Williams Town” (or “Wiremu Taone”), but by 1846, when a stockade was built there under the command of Sir Charles Clifford, with 40 members of the Volunteer Militia in residence, the area had been formally named “Johnsonville”.

James Petherick and his brother George who emigrated to New Zealand from Helston in Cornwall,  purchased half of Johnson’s land (55 acres) in 1845 for 10 pounds per acre, naming the area “Helston Farm”, from which today’s “Helston Park” is a remnant.

As for Frank Johnson, it’s said that he lost two-thirds of the capital he invested in “Kinapora”, given the effort required to make the land productive. After his return to England, he farmed for a time at Pembrokeshire, before taking his family to Lennoxville in Quebec, Canada (where he also farmed). He died there in 1892.

It’s interesting to note that in 2010 his Canadian descendants visited New Zealand, being aware that their ancestor’s name is memorialised in the name of a Wellington city suburb, encompassing the turangawaewae of a proud and parochial rugby club.

In Touchline’s view, while Saturday’s match at Helston Park was by no means agricultural in quality, it was certainly reminiscent of the hard graft that Johnson and Petherick brought to taming the land on which the game was played.