Sideline Conversions 26 August (some rugby news and information to start the week)

A colossal week of rugby for Wellington and lower North Island teams, as the action continues to come thick and fast.

The midweek rugby sees the St Mary’s College and Manukura teams meet in the Hurricanes schoolgirls Rex Kerr Cup final. This is set down for the Petone Rec at 1.30pm on Wednesday. The winner progresses to the Top 4, with Manukura narrowly winning this last year and going on to be National champions.

Much of the action this coming weekend for Wellington teams is away from home, with the Wellington Lions heading to Canterbury next Sunday to play the home team for the Harry Saundercock Memorial Trophy and other teams heading up the line.

On Saturday, both the Wellington Centurions and Wellington U19s are away in Napier against Hawke’s Bay teams, the U19s playing in round two of their Central Region Shield competition.

The Wellington Samoans and Manawatū Evergreens are in Palmerston North in their match, while the Wellington Pride and Manawatū Cyclones Development teams also meet in Palmerston North in the third and final leg of their series.

The Hurricanes First XV final is also in Palmerston North, between Palmerston North Boys’ High School and Feilding High School. Much local interest will be on this game, so the time and venue will be one to look out for.

In Wellington, The Upper Hutt and Heretaunga College First XV teams contest their annual traditional at Maidstone Park at 1.00pm.

Sunday sees the Wellington Pride return to Porirua Park to host the North Harbour Hibiscus in their third and final Farah Palmer Cup encounter at home.

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The next round of National Knockout Cup U85g matches is not until 14 September, when we will be up to the quarterfinals. The final is set out to be on 28 September as the curtain-raiser to All Blacks v Wallabies at Wellington Stadium.

based on the teams we can see that are left you could call the next round “Regional Finals”, so that means that Pōneke and OBU will meet in a for for a place in the semi-finals.

Teams left are: Morrinsville, Karaka, Shirley or High school Old Boys (no result seen from the weekend), Linwood, OBU, Pōneke, Auckland University, Pakuranga

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The Wellington Lions were almost pussycats yesterday at Porirua Park, taking a long time to get on top of brave Manawatū, before winning 39-31.

There were some alarming lapses on defence and poor quality moments but experience from the bench and a strong Finish got the job done for the men in pink. Supreme offloading by Riley Higgins, immense form from Peter Lakai and strong cameos by Brad Shields, Filo Paulo and Leni Apasi.

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The Wellington Pride was well off the mark in conceding 50 points for the third time in the last 11 games in their record 55-24 defeat to Manawatū in the FPC Championship yesterday. Wellington’s biggest loss was 65-0 to Auckland in 2012.

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A good win for the Wellington Women’s Development side in the first game at Porirua Park on Sunday, beating their Manawatū counterparts 55-5. An improvement on the 55-26 win last weekend in Palmerston North. On Sunday, Wellington scored nine tries, with the Te Puni sisters scoring four of those tries. Scorers were: Te Arani Te Puni (2), Hana Te Puni (1), Kararaina Te Puni (1), Octavia Nanai (1), Xanthe Somerville (1), Ivana Samani (1), Lesieli Tuangalu (1), TBC (1) tries. Madi Gold 5 conversions.

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Is Sam Clarke growing into the modern day Fa’atonu Fili of Wellington rugby?

Super talented and great to watch with a bag of tricks that he’s increasingly using, like Fili who was known as the magician of MSP (and Ories) backlines for many seasons.

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Plenty of good stuff coming out of the Centurions – not just this year. This team, AKA the Wellington Development or B side – has fashioned a solid record over the past two-three seasons. A reflection on the overall depth of high-performance players in Wellington and the number of players motivated to keep playing to a high level after a brutal club season to push for higher honours.

Two players who fit that bill for us on Saturday were Sione Halalilo (who can play all three loose forward positions) and Akira Ieremia (predominantly a lock but can also play blindside). If Dominic Ropeti is out for a while (went off injured for the Lions yesterday), then they lose little there. Update: We forgot about Du Plessis Kirifi too – he broke his jaw yesterday. So one or possibly two replacements will need to be made in the loose forwards.

Connor Tuifao is another player who has come on strongly this year, the Petone flanker with the distinctive pink headgear also plays with high energy and a big work-rate. His younger brother Connor is tighthead prop for the St Pat’s Silverstream team.  Tighthead prop Bradley Crichton is also a player to watch for the near future, having been injured for much of this season.

One position that turned some heads last week was the acquisition of a halfback from outside the region to deputise for Kyle Preston. The Lions called in Nui Muriwai whom few in Wellington have heard of. He previously played seven games for Thames Valley and one for Waikato. This website got a couple of messages asking about local halfbacks. We assumed Issac Bracewell was out injured (sprig to the hand recently) but he was back playing for the Centurions on Saturday. He’s not Antoine Dupont, but Ories halfback Bracewell has been involved in the wider squad all season to date so if they have discarded him and deemed him not up to NPC level that’s perhaps a bit harsh, not just on him but on local fans of the game who want name recognition. If not him, there are other local halfbacks Logan Henry and Cam Ferriera.

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Marist St Pat’s is seeking expressions of interest for their Premier Men and Women next year:

For more visit the link below:

 https://www.msprugby.co.nz/Site/Club/News-Events/Latest_News/premier_coaches_ad_2025.aspx

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Interesting call-up to the All Blacks for George Bower over Ethan de Groot last week? Good for the former Lower Hutt player, but what about Xavier Numia? On Super Ruby form at least. Perhaps Numia’s recent injury is still not quite right, he was subbed quite early yesterday for the Japanese prop.

Some may suggest there’s a red and black bias going on. They already had 5 current or ex Crusaders coaches, with Jason Holland being the only one who hasn’t coached the Crusaders.

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The St Pat’s Silverstream v Palmerston North Boys’ High School Hurricanes semi-final match was broadcast on the streaming platform Huddy Sports. Palmerston North rector David Bovey’s voice was a welcome and knowledgeable presence. Let’s hope Feilding and Palmerston North are as congenial to a media presence this coming Saturday. The two Manawatū powerhouses choose to otherwise ignore each other with only three forced meetings between the schools since 2011. In 2011 when the same match was broadcast on the Rugby Channel a crowd of more than 5,000 was drawn to Arena Manawatū for an epic showdown enjoyed by all and won narrowly by Palmerston North.

As we reported in our Saturday round-up, Silverstream were far from their best on Saturday against Palmerston North, at least compared to the previous week when they beat Wellington College in the Wellington final. If they were at their best then perhaps a Wellington school would have made the Top 4 tournament for the first time since 2015.

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Shout out to Aaron Cruden, the current ‘elder statesman’ first five of NZ domestic rugby (possibly surpassed next year by a return by Jimmy Gopperth). Cruden came off the bench late in the first half yesterday for Waikato.

Cruden captained the PNBHS First XV in 2006 and survived testicular cancer in 2008, aged 19, to captain the NZ U20s in 2009 and win the World Rugby Junior Player of the Year award that year. He made the All Blacks the following year.

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Auckland have lost three games on the trot to start the NPC for the first time. Though each defeat has been close, the gormless one pass, crash, bash, smash tactics typically followed by a poor box kick are majorly concerning for New Zealand’s biggest union. Especially when you consider the number of Blues Super Rugby winners and former All Blacks in the roster.

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Canterbury Māori beat Wellington Māori 22-19 in the final of their hosted tournament at NZCIS on Saturday. Canterbury won the Binny and Alma Andrew Tournament Cup and the Tirikatene Challenge Shield that these two teams have been competing for over a number of seasons.

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Fusi Feaunati, currently the head coach for the Wellington Pride, was appointed Hurricanes Poua Super Rugby Aupiki coach last week and will start after the 2024 Farah Palmer Cup season ends. There was no explanation for the change. Did Ngatai Walker depart for mundane personal reasons. Was it performance based? The Poua were last with a 1-5 record in 2023. Was the change forced internally after an adverse response to the haka controversy?

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An oopsie in the Sky graphics yesterday when Luke Campbell came on to replace livewire Jordi Viljoen at halfback for Manawatū, saying he was on NPC debut. When he has been around for almost a decade now playing for Manawatū. and Bay of Plenty and now back to the Turbos.

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Jackson Garden-Bachop becomes just the second man in @BunningsNPC history to kick 200 conversions in the competition.

312 – Grant Fox
200 – Jackson Garden-Bachop *
181 – David Holwell
169 – Matthew Cooper
168 – Fletcher Smith@WgtnRugby pic.twitter.com/TGf8whRz8C

— Rugby Database Stats & Info (@nzrugbydatabase) August 25, 2024

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It was announced last week that the early season First XV Tranzit Coachlines First XV Rugby Festival is being canned. From the release below:

“Since its inception in 2013, this festival has provided an invaluable opportunity for the top Wellington First XV teams to compete against the Super 8 First XV teams at the start of Term 2.  However, each year we face a number of significant challenges, including escalating costs for hosts and travel for teams.  These, along with other factors have made it increasingly difficult to justify the considerable effort required to organise the event.

“Given these circumstances, we believe it is best to cancel the festival.  I am confident that Wellington and Super 8 teams will continue to connect and schedule matches during the early Term 2 window.”

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This isn’t directly rugby related, but it deeply affects community sport. Sideline Conversions was driving to our destination on Saturday morning and listened to an interview on Wellington Newstalk ZB between Adam Cooper and veteran Wellington cycling event organiser Jorge Sandoval. The interviewee was telling Adam he must cancel his events this year, including the Capital Classic. Why? Because of escalating costs, including traffic management costs. He was saying in the past three years this alone has increased from $12,000 to $42,000 (or perhaps 43k, we misheard)! And that in the ‘old days’ they’d have volunteers on the corners in hi vis jackets, so presumably much cheaper again. This is the sort of thing that will kill the sporting events industry stone cold sooner rather than later if unchecked. So someone out there is clipping the ticket bigtime with zero regard for consequences.

What if it becomes prohibitive to put on rugby events at places like Porirua Park going forward? Is this why the WRFU cancelled NPC pre-season this year? Is this the real reason why the school Premiership final last Sunday was thrown in at 11.15am before the NPC match and why it was a ticketed event, to recover some costs? Did College Sport Wellington go along with it to save costs?

The New Zealand Amateur Sports Association’s e-newsletter yesterday also brought up the subject of escalating and prohibitive insurance costs of facilities and clubrooms and the like. This could also have a real impact going forward. If insurance becomes out of reach, then sports clubs might have to ‘self insure’ for small to moderate events but hope their clubrooms aren’t burnt down or there’s an earthquake.

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The JJ Stewart Trophy changed hands for the first time since 2017 when Auckland beat Canterbury 43-27 in the Farah Palmer Cup (FPC). Canterbury defended the JJ 20 times but have lost two regular season games for the first time since 2015. Both sides were gutted of Black Ferns with 18 combined players missing. Daynah Nankivell, Elizabeth Moimoi, Angelica Mekemeke Vahai, Karla Wright-Akeli and Braxton Sorenson-McGee are players worth keeping an eye on for Auckland.

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Given the transient nature of women’s rugby, North Harbour had 14 debutants in FPC Round One. Is there a need for a pre-season repechage or ranking system to determine the Premiership and Championship make-up in the FPC? Manawatū flogged Wellington and would likely administer similar punishment on Premiership strugglers Northland and Bay of Plenty and yet they’re stuck in the Championship after one loss last year.

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Here’s a recent new law we don’t like, never have. The goal-line dropout. It is probably a good law if there is no wind about and on the Transvaal in South Africa. But in Wellington, the goal-line drop-out is stupid when its windy. On Saturday, the Manawatu B team made two second half errors doing this, kicking the ball out on the full. These resulted in 5-metre scrums under the posts for the attacking team and on both occasions they scored the try.

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The 2024 New Zealand Schools programme was recently revealed. Details are below. Will any Wellington players make this teams this year?

Wednesday 2 October

Games at St Paul’s Collegiate, Hamilton

• 12.00pm, NZ Māori vs Fiji Schools
• 2.00pm, NZ Barbarians vs Australia U18
• 4.00pm, NZ Schools vs Samoa Schools

Sunday 6 October:

Games at FMG Stadium, Hamilton

• 12.00pm, NZ Māori vs Samoa Schools
• 2.00pm, NZ Barbarians vs Fiji Schools
• 4.00pm, NZ Schools vs Australia U18

Thursday 10 October:

Game at St Paul’s Collegiate, Hamilton

• 12.00pm Chiefs U18 vs Samoa Schools
• 2.00pm, NZ Schools vs Fiji Schools