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Fraser Park in perfect condition on Saturday. The weather gods were kind this past weekend as well, a lovely blue sky day on Saturday afternoon and a cold miserable southerly with lashings of rain on Sunday afternoon.
UPDATED: Today is King’s Birthday Monday – the first since 1951. There was club rugby on that day in 1951. Here is the ‘Today in History’ entry:
Poneke’s 14-3 King’s Birthday Monday defeat of eastern suburbs rivals and competition leaders Oriental sets up a tight points table, with three points separating the leading nine teams at this point of the competition. In bitterly cold conditions at Athletic Park, Poneke scores a decisive try early in the second spell when electric No. 8 Jim Grbich charges down a clearing kick and Vic Calcanai converts. Nineteen years after their first Jubilee Cup win in 1932, Poneke wins its second standalone title later this season.
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Loads more rugby to look forward to over the next week.
There are three more rounds of the Premier Swindale Shield to come. Matches at a glance are:
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More midweek school rugby coming right up, three noted matches on Wednesday are:
- The St Pat’s Silverstream Second XV host Hato Paora College at 12.45pm at Silverstream.
- Tawa College and Wairarapa College meet in their re-scheduled Premiership fixture at Tawa College at 1.00pm.
- The Sacred Heart College girls side take on Manukura at the Hutt Rec at 3.45pm.
- Mana College defend the Beard Trophy against Porirua College, kick-off at Ngati Toa Domain 3.30pm.
A previously scheduled match on Tuesday between the Hutt Valley High School First XV game and Whanganui High School has been cancelled.
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This coming Saturday Old Boys University are wearing a special alternate jersey against Oriental-Rongotai. It was designed by former manager Hayden Smith and is a tribute to Dave ‘Trapper’ Loveridge for what he has done for the club over the past 20 years,The jersey is designed with the same colours as the Inglewood Club, which is Trapper’s club in the ‘Naki. The jerseys will be auctioned at the Trapper Testimonial Dinner OBU is having next month.
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Former Petone, Wellington and All Blacks captain Andy Leslie has been appointed by King Charles III, as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services to sport and the community, on the occasion of the 2023 celebration of His Majesty’s Birthday and recent Coronation. The Order is awarded to those “who in any field of endeavour, have rendered meritorious service to the Crown and the nation or who have become distinguished by their eminence, talents, contributions, or other merits”.
Mr Andy Leslie was an All Black Test Captain in the 1970s, represented New Zealand in softball and water polo, and since 2001 has been involved with community development, youth and sports administration. Mr Leslie was President of New Zealand Rugby Football Union from 2008 to 2009. He was Officer from 2002, Director from 2004 and President from 2017 of the New Zealand Rugby Foundation.
He holds Life Memberships with New Zealand Rugby, Wellington Rugby, Centurions Rugby Club, Petone Rugby Club, and New Zealand Amateur Sport Association, of which he was President from 2017 to 2019.
He has been a strong advocate for amateur sports and volunteer participation.
He is a Life Trustee of the Halberg Trust and a Trustee of Pelorus Trust. He has been a Board member and driving force behind formation of the Community Facilities Trust in 2012, established to lead the rejuvenation and development of Hutt Valley facilities. He was instrumental in the Trust’s development of the Walter Nash Stadium in Taita, the Naenae Bowling Club, the Koraunui Stokes Valley Community Hub and the Ricoh Sports Centre at Fraser Park. His involvement in voluntary fundraising was instrumental in helping raise $12 million towards establishing these facilities.
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Please note that scammers purporting to be promoting livestreams of games in Facebook comments are really ramping up now.
New ones are appearing as fast as we can ban and hide them in the comments of our posts. As far as Club Rugby goes, we don’t do live-streaming so ignore anything from our end (although the glass is half full, so in the future we would be keen to start live-streaming matches). But also be aware of being on pages that do live-streaming. Think before you click!
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A first half hat-trick for Peter Umaga-Jensen for Wainuiomata on Saturday, including his first after 90 seconds that put visitors Northern United on the back foot for the rest of the match. Wainuiomata led 47-5 at halftime and went on to win 59-26.
From the 2022 Northern United Jubilee Cup Championship winning team, only Captain Luca Rees, Waylon Baker, Olano Afutoto and final MVP Boston Hunt ran out against Wainuiomata on Saturday, and ironically these were the team’s leading players in a heavy defeat.
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In the incognito player files, Alex Fidow made his return to Ories colours on Saturday when he lined up at centre for the Premier 2 side. Hard to recognise him though having seemingly streamlined himself and wearing headgear.
Great to see him back, but unsure how it works that a registered rugby league player in Australia can flip to rugby in New Zealand?
Or how rugby league can stage a one-off schools tournament on a Saturday and deplete some rugby union First XVs on the same day, and force one to offer to default their match because of a lack of numbers? In this instance Wairarapa College have instead agreed to defer their fixture against Mana College to an as yet unconfirmed date.
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Two Premier teams in Wellington ticked over to 400 competition points in Saturday’s 10th round set of matches. Competition leaders Paremata-Plimmerton have scored exactly 400 points and 60 tries in their 10 games so far and fourth placed the Upper Hutt Rams 401 points and 54 tries.
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Dane Coles played his final game for the Hurricanes at home on Saturday – one of the Stadium’s favourite players over the past 15 years since he burst on to the scene with two runaway tries for the Wellington Lions against Otago in 2007.
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In Super Rugby propping news, John Afoa isn’t eligible for the Crusaders for the playoffs because he wasn’t in New Zealand before 1 April. We have heard that Pek Cowan is heading to the Crusaders this week as cover.
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Is the First XV Premiership a two-horse race already? Who can see a final in early August not involving St Pat’s Silverstream and Scots College? Has St Pat’s Town won a game this year? By our count they are 0-8. A turnaround will have to be imminent.
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As mentioned on Friday, a new interclub trophy between the Upper Hutt Rams and Johnsonville was contested on Saturday. Johnsonville won 41-39 and took home the Kerry Williams Cup. About this trophy: Donated by Tiny Graham for the Williams Family in memory of Kerry. Ex Upper Hutt player and coach and ex Johnsonville RDO and Father of Nathan and Jamie Williams. Nathan coached UH 2013-2015 and their winning 7s team, and later Feilding Yellows to championship glory in the Manawatu. Jamie Coached OBU and was part of Jubilee Cup winning OBU teams.
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Interesting that a long-time Sevens coach is appointed Hurricanes head next year. Clark Laidlaw was very successful with the All Black Sevens but, aside from two average performances by the New Zealand Under 20’s recently, he hasn’t served in the fifteens space for the best part of a decade. Is this relevant? Who were the better candidates than Clark for the job? Who are his likely assistants? How will the style of play change? Additionally, how will his appointment resonate with the fans, many of whom won’t know who he is and could see him as NZRU’s guy not their one?
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Could do a lot worse than Brayden Iose as a World Cup bolter. What about picking Cam Roigard and Cortez Ratima at halfback to keep Aarom Smith honest.
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We can come in with an update to this next week (or maybe the week after if they beat the Brumbies) but it looks like the Hurricanes are going to go through the entire season by not once posting any results of their games on their website. Yes they post the scores each week HERE , usually belatedly. But absolutely nothing beyond the score. What about the scorers, a basic match summary of results, even a paragraph about what happened? Yes, we understand that full written match reports have been replaced by social media banners, but all these show are scores and a photo or two as well. What about some statistics on their website, such as leading scorers for the season, leading all-time try and points scorers, the list goes on.
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I’ll see you an alleged First XV scandal story and raise you one. Last week the New Zealand Herald went to town on a story about alleged racial, class and sexist abuse at a recent traditional between CBHS and Christ’s College. Someone at the ground has told us this was more of a case of an angle looking for a story. In this case, aside from sordid hits from their paywalled posse, the agenda would be to take down the promotion of and reputation of First XV elsewhere in the country as well as Auckland. At the end of the week Stuff had matched them with a Wellington College tirade of juvenile abuse on an Instagram post ahead of last week’s match against Scots College. We are not here to get involved in what or wasn’t said or written (yes we have seen the original Wellington College post), rather to pass comment that these organisations can’t or won’t cover the actual sport anymore. Why not?
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A win by the NZ 20s in their return fixture against the Junior Wallabies, a 19-18 victory. A real shame that the rugby community couldn’t get behind this game and support it, due to poor marketing, not helped by the local newspaper now the ‘Post’ all but falling over at this point and scheduling that once more cuts into community sport on Saturday afternoons. They could have played the game on Lord Howe Island No. 1 perhaps?
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When TMOs would have have come in handy in club rugby. Two instances shot through our photographer’s lenses on Saturday of tries being grounded short of the line being awarded/not awarded. One was grounded a good six inches short and was awarded, the other looked to be a blade of grass short and perhaps could have gone the other way but didn’t.
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In Horowhenua-Kapiti, Foxton defeated Levin Wanderers 29-10 in the latter club’s 125th anniversary match at the Levin Domain on Saturday. Just one more match, a catch-up fixture, that saw Levin College Old Boys beat Paraparaumu 22-12.
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Old Boys Marist continue to set the pace in Manawatu club rugby, beating bottom placed Freyberg 43-0 on Saturday. It was closer in the other two games, with Kia Toa and Feilding contesting a 35-35 draw and Varsity beating Te Kawau 35-25.
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Most tries in a @SuperRugby season by a NZ halfback:
11 TJ Perenara (2015)
9 Cam Roigard (2023) *
7 TJ Perenara (2012)
7 TJ Perenara (2013)
7 Aaron Smith (2015)
7 TJ Perenara (2016)
7 TJ Perenara (2017)@Hurricanesrugby pic.twitter.com/YLbOFSgYfS— Rugby Database Stats & Info (@nzrugbydatabase) June 3, 2023
