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By our thinking, this coming weekend is the last weekend of ‘summer’ for many club rugby players and officials throughout the lower North Island.
Pre-season matches will start on Saturday 2 March and continue on 9, 16 and 23 of March. In Wellington most clubs will be in camp over Easter weekend, while Manawatu’s re-extended 9-team competition starts up on Saturday 30 March.
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This coming weekend sees the third and final match in the Hurricanes Academy/U20s series with the Wellington and Manawatu teams meeting at Massey. Hawke’s Bay beat Manawatu 48-36 in the series opener followed by Hawke’s Bay and Wellington drawing 19-19. So Wellington will need to beat Manawatu with a bonus point and win by more than 12 points to win the series.
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The Super Rugby season starts this coming weekend. The Hurricanes headed to Perth yesterday morning, ahead of their first match on Friday night/Saturday morning, kick-off midnight NZT.
We spoke with Hurricanes loose forward Brayden Iose last week, so look out for that story on our website in a couple of days.
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A huge loss for the Wainuiomata and Wellington rugby community:
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On Friday, it was a largely successful pre-season outing for the Hurricanes at NZCIS. The game was won and it was wonderful and refreshing to see a large, vibrant, young crowd so close to the action and able to interact with the players afterward. Injured captain Brad Shields was an affable presence at one entrance. However, a couple of issues need addressing. What was the contingency plan if it rained with no shelter? Why were the numbers on players’ backs such a jumble? Granted it was pre-season but these outfits are professional clubs looking to promote their teams. Having confusing and lazy number assignments doesn’t help that cause. In the NRL teams are fined if they supply incorrect team information. The same thing should happen in Super Rugby.
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Community rugby in New Zealand is set to trial a 20-minute red card replacement for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. More from Monday morning’s full NZRU media release on Monday morning at the very bottom of this article.
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A couple of bits of information out of WRFU about the Women’s grade for the 2024 season. By vote, the participating clubs have chosen to repeat last year’s format of a full round-robin for the Rebecca Liua’ana Trophy followed by a top/bottom split for the Tia Passi Memorial and Izzy Ford Cups, with grade entries to determine the length of the competition. One team that won’t be joining however is the Wairarapa Wahine Toa side, who have opted to remain with Manawatu for the season.
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Some news on the Laws front, with Super Rugby gaining approval to modify a section of the offside law in an attempt to avoid the ‘kick tennis’ that has emerged in northern hemisphere comps this season. The laws being removed allowed a player in front at kick to advance if the opposition either passed the ball or ran 5m with it, with the result that a player is now only back on onside if the opposition kicks the ball or are put onside by a teammate. Super Rugby bosses and coaches hope that this tweak will encourage more running rugby from these situations.
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The WRRA have their AGM tonight, but some early good news for them on the higher-levels front with several leading referees named in the new Hurricanes region squad. Jack Sargentina, Matt Thomas, Charlie Harris, and Ethan Loveridge have all made the cut, along with Tomas Roche who is in the Blues squad after his recent move to Auckland. A fifth Wellington referee named is Claire Richardson, who returns to Wellington after several years away including the past two in Tasman. The squads replace the previous National Squad setup, with the aim to broaden and upskill the base of referees to handle representative-level fixtures.
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Every Stuff pundit has picked the Chiefs to win Super Rugby. With a settled and experienced squad, the same head coach, and wins over every team last year that appears to be safe ground. However, what happens if Damian McKenize goes down? Is Luke Jacobson the right choice as captain? How could the Chiefs blow such a big opportunity to win the title last year when they had the experience of Sam Cane, Brodie Retallick and Brad Weber?
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Moana Pasifika, who has only won 3 of 29 Super Rugby matches, looks set to struggle again in 2024. Their scrum and lineout looked alarmingly fragile in their 59-26 preseason defeat to the Hurricanes on Friday. Despite some promising individual talent, like Miracle Fai’ilagi and Kyren Taumoefolau, they’ve lost a bundle of very good players: Jack Lam, Joe ‘Apikotoa, Levi Aumua, Lincoln McClutchie, Lolagi Visinia and Timoci Tavatavanawai.
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A lot of pundits predict that Caleb Clarke will have a big season. What about a breakout year for Kini Naholo? He offers everything Clarke does. After a shocking run with injury, Naholo had a big 2023 scoring nine tries for the Hurricanes and helping Taranaki win the NPC. He looked menacing in preseason on Friday. A rampaging winger catching fire. Rugby needs that right now.
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Sam Gilbert, aptly named after the oval ball perhaps, could be one to watch for the Highlanders. A goal kicker, he can play on both wings, fullback, and has moved into second five having played first-five in his past too. Besides versatility, Gilbert was one the Highlanders best in 2023 and has a knack for making things happen. There is some resemblance to Ben Smith who’s on the Highlanders coaching staff.
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A SENZ Radio discussion on Sunday between Mark Watson and Steve Devine (which we caught the end of), discussing a potential niggly medium term injury for Cam Roigard. If true, the positive there is the return of TJ Perenara, but Hurricanes supporters will hope to see Roigard back after his one night in Paris adventures last year and then returning to smash the All Blacks’ bronco record in pre-season fitness testing in January.
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In his discussion above, Devine was talking up the Blues and coach Vern Cotter. He also brought up a good point that the Fijian Drua could be in the mix at the end, they win most of their home games and can nab a couple away. He was also talking up a menacing new wing in the mould of Rupeni Caucaunibuca, so watch out!
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It’s generally accepted that for the most part the aforementioned Stuff and in particular its Wellington arm just called The Post (like the 1960s folk/pop music act was just called the Band) mostly got out of the pesky business of covering local and community sport a few years ago. And that it now heavily favours coverage of one sport over all others. So what came over it last week when it wrote not one but two local rugby stories?
The first was fair enough, something we were looking out of late last year – the publication of last year’s WRFU Annual Report and/or financials. This shows the union is at rock bottom and the only way is up! The second (which admittedly we didn’t read as it was behind a paywall) was looking at player numbers. This, of course, is what everyone in the sport knows, the decline in player numbers has been like trying to catch a falling knife.
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Bookmark and view our photos website at https://clubrugby.smugmug.com/2024
Community rugby in New Zealand is set to trial a 20-minute red card replacement for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
Supported by the 26 Provincial Unions, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has confirmed that the innovation will apply to all levels of the community game in New Zealand, including club and school.
NZR General Manager Community Rugby Steve Lancaster said the decision affirmed the ongoing commitment to safety and positive player experiences at the grassroots.
“This is the first community trial for this innovation anywhere in the world and we’re proud that New Zealand continues to lead in finding ways to create a safer game that our participants love to play.
“We believe that this innovation suitably deals with the offending player, whilst also preserving the competition and experience for teams, coaches, spectators and referees.”
NZR first introduced the 20-minute red card to Super Rugby in 2020 to appropriately manage foul play without impacting the integrity of the match.
Since then, it has successfully featured in DHL Super Rugby Pacific, Sky Super Rugby Aupiki, Lipovitan-D Rugby Championship and Bunnings Warehouse Provincial Rugby competitions.
Lancaster added that alignment across the professional and community games was a strength of New Zealand rugby.
“We know our fans and community participants want a game that’s exciting and puts them at the centre of decision making. Our view is that we can continue to trial these types of innovations and contribute to the overall global evolution of the game.”
The game innovation will see a player who has received a Red Card replaced after 20 minutes by another player. If a player receives a second Yellow Card which equates to an automatic Red Card, after a further 20 minutes, the Red Carded player can be replaced.
Four community rugby game innovations will now feature for the next two seasons.
After successful trials in 2023, NZR confirmed in December last year that the reduced tackle height to below the sternum, a maximum scrum push for all community rugby (excluding senior premier club rugby) and half back offside at the scrum would all be implemented.
