Sideline Conversions 7 October (some rugby news and information to start the week)

Lookout the Bus aka Tyson aka Julian Savea is coming through. The Oriental-Rongotai wing and teammates celebrate Wellington’s 7th and final try of the afternoon on Saturday as HOBM’s Kienan Higgins and Wainuiomata’s Sam Smith in Hawke’s Bay colours can only watch on in despair. The Magpies had earlier led 21-0. Photo: Mike Lewis. 

Monday lunchtime edition:  There’s more to come. We’ve been prematurely announcing the end of the 15s season in Wellington for the past fortnight, but the local rugby rolls on with a match this coming Friday at the NZCIS at Upper Hutt between the Hurricanes U18s and Crusaders U18s. Both franchise’s junior players are in camp this week and come together for this match. Kick-off time and field details are yet to be released. Club Rugby will be there with written and visual coverage.

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We also have All Blacks and All Blacks XV squads being announced this afternoon.

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We also understand that the WRFU awards are coming up fast, after which Club Rugby can finally reveal the annual Best & Fairest Team of the Season for 2024. So look out for that soon!

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The Wellington Lions had a roller-coaster win over the Hawke’s Bay Magpies on Saturday.

Trailing 0-21 after as many minutes and lucky not to go further behind,  the Lions suddenly reversed a flatlining start to score three tries of their own to lead 22-21 at halftime. They then roared to victory in the second half to win 46-28.

On Sunday, Taranaki won the Ranfurly Shield off Tasman. This also served to propel the Lions to the top qualifier’s position, hosting the eighth placed team in their quarter-final. Only snag for fans is that match set down for Friday night at Yellow Stadium is against Counties-Manukau, the team that thrashed them 51-12 just a fortnight ago. Depending on the status of All Blacks, they could be even stronger on Friday, with the returning Cam Roigard (two tries in his comeback match against Manawatu) and Dalton Papali’i amongst them.

The NPC quarter-finals draw at a glance is (home team first):

• Wellington (1) v Counties Manukau (8), Friday 7.05pm
• Taranaki (2) v Waikato (7), New Plymouth, Saturday, 7.05pn
• Tasman (3) v Canterbury (6), Blenheim, Sunday 2.05pm
• Hawke’s Bay (4) v Bay of Plenty (5), Tauranga, Saturday 2.05pm

Given there have been some wild momentum swings in form in recent weeks (as per most years), heading into a quarter-finals format, could the top qualifier get to pick their opponent from the 5 v 8 teams? could the second placed qualifier have second pick and third placed the third pick and the other two teams are drawn by default?

Also, the assumption is that the top qualifier gets to pick which quarter-final timeslot they want. So Friday night is preferable to Saturday or Sunday afternoon for the Wellington Lions.

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The WRFU will be edging closer to revealing details of this year’s club sevens tournaments in November.

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The details of the school sevens tournaments are more well known, with the annual Condor Sevens at Naenae College coming up on Labour Day Monday 28 October (three weeks from today), and the Hurricanes Schools Tournament at Feilding High School on Saturday 2 November. Details of other tournaments to follow.

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A couple of upsets marked the final round in the Heartland Championship, but ultimately the top four remained intact after this past wekeend.

Horowhenua-Kapiti provided one of those, beating Thames Valley 41-35 in Whitianga, while King Country tipped over Whanganui 34-17 in the river city. Wairarapa Bush’s bid to make the Lochore Cup playoffs came up short, beaten 45-32 by East Coast in Ruatoria.

In the other matches table topping South Canterbury were made to work by West Coast before winning 43-38, Mid Canterbury beat Poverty Bay 47-24, and North Otago thumped strugglers Buller 55-14.

Those results mean that this coming Saturday’s top 4 Meads Cup semifinals sees South Canterbury host neighbours Mid Canterbury, and Whanganui are at home against Thames Valley. King Country’s win wasn’t enough to crack the top four, and they’ll host East Coast, while Horowhenua-Kapiti’s win earned them a home semi against West Coast in the Lochore Cup semi-final matches.

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A win for the Australia U18s against the New Zealand Schools side in Hamilton on Sunday, while the New Zealand Barbarians Schools defeated Samoa Schools 102-10 and the New Zealand Under-18 Māori beat the New Zealand Heartland Under-20s 53-22.

More on these matches below by Adam Julian at the lin who was on the ground in Hamilton at the link below. The next round of games is this coming Wednesday.

New Zealand Schools fall to Australia U18s, NZ Barbarians Schools beat Samoa Schools

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What about rugby in the Blues region – the Super Rugby team based in the city wins Super Rugby, while none of the three NPC teams representing the Blues – Auckland, North Harbour or Northland –  featuring many of the same players and aspiring ones fails to make the NPC quarter-finals.

Is this an outlier, or is rugby on the decline here? Of these three unions, last year just Auckland made the top 8 (in sixth place) and lost, although in 2022 all three made the top 8 with Auckland making the semi-finals.

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Gerald Kember, who made 19 appearances for the All Blacks between 1967 and 1970, has died. He was 78.

A fullback and second five-eighth, Kember, who was a talented schoolboy player in Nelson, played just one test.

His sole appearance in an international was at fullback against the Springboks in the fourth test in Johannesburg in 1970.

It was also Kember’s last match for the All Blacks.

The rest of his appearances for the All Blacks were in fixtures that were not internationals. Kember toured with the All Blacks to the northern hemisphere in 1967, and three years later was picked for the tour of South Africa.

Kember played his provincial rugby for Wellington and club rugby for University.

Rugby historian Lindsay Knight noted on the All Blacks.com website that Kember frequently made himself unavailable for major rugby commitments to concentrate on university studies, and then, when he graduated, on his job as a lawyer.

Kember, who also played for the NZ Universities side, played 104 first-class games.

Members of the Wellington rugby side wore black armbands as a sign of respect for Kember during the NPC clash against Hawke’s Bay in Wellington on Saturday.

Article above taken from a RNZ story

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Following on from what some other teams have done, Auckland took their last round NPC match away from Eden Park on Saturday. In a first for the competition, they bypassed a club ground and took it to a school ground. The match against the Bay of Plenty Steamers was played on Auckland Grammar School No. 1.  A decent venue apart from the big screen appearing to be hidden behind a tree and a marquee.

Similarly, Manawatu took their final round match to Massey University. That ground is no stranger to hosting big matches in the past. Recently the Manawatu Cyclones played there, for a few years the Top 4 finals were held there, and prior to that the National Sevens on a handful of occasions.

Apart from being learning institutions, another thing Auckland Grammar and Massey have in common is they are both non-council controlled grounds.

What school ground could host an NPC match in Wellington? Wellington College in front of the terraces would be an obvious venue, or St Pat’s Silverstream.

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WRRA referee Tomas Roche on the assistant referee duties at that Auckland – Bay of plenty game.

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A record win for the Southland Stags against North Harbour, who themselves had beaten Canterbury 65-19 the previous week!

Lock Josh Bekhuis became the most capped Stag of all time with 144 caps. The 38-year old was in the Southland team that won the Ranfurly Shield in 2009 and 2011, and had stints at both the Highlanders and Blues and playing overseas.

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After winning the Hurricanes Youth Council’s U16 tournament last week, the union followed up by winning the Hurricanes U18 Girls tournament at home in Napier.

Hawke’s Bay beat Manawatu 22-25 in the final, after beating Whanganui 15-5 in the semi-final. Manawatu and Wellington Centurions had drawn 12-12 in the other semi-final but Manawatu advanced as they scored the first try.

As part of the Tournament, a MVP was selected for each team, with the overall Tournament MVP award being made to Trilaine Suitauloa, (Wellington Centurions). Other team MVPs were: Georgie Beaufoy, (Hawke’s Bay); Kearney Matenga, (Manawatu); and Lasaini Aleke, (Whanganui).

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Congratulations to Ben O’Keeffe who became New Zealand’s most capped Test referee over the weekend with 47 matches 🖤

We’re immensely proud of Ben for his time and dedication to the game, and he is a valued member of our team. 🤝#RespectTheRef pic.twitter.com/jaxRPTS2vj

— New Zealand Rugby (@NZRugby) October 2, 2024

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At the end of the round-robin, Petone’s TJ Clarke is Wellington’s leading the try-scorer with seven tries. Old Boys University’s Kyle Preston has five tries, the most by a halfback. The list is:

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Marist St Pat’s welcome new Head Coach Jason Adamson next year, coming across after spending the past four seasons at Johnsonville.

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Fairly interesting move here by the Crusaders.

What, if anything, does this say about the Crusaders and about the Super Rugby competition. One thought is do these sort of signings mean that the NPC is now completely irrelevant to Super Rugby? What does this say about young first fives in the Crusaders region or in New Zealand? And why announce it now, couldn’t they have waited another couple of weeks until the NPC is all but over to keep their media on  covering and promoting the Canterbury, Tasman and South Canterbury teams, when they announce other less high profile signings such as Old Boys University halfback Kyle Preston?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Crusaders (@crusadersrugbyteam)

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Check out episode 131 of the Huddy Hui tonight, featuring a catch up with former Tawa RFC and Wellington College halfback George Sims, who played for Pakuranga in Auckland in 2024.

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On Friday, three-test New Zealand Black Ferns player Grace Steinmetz abruptly retired, after receiving medical advice that it would be unsafe to continue playing, citing a brain injury as the cause. The 26-year-old represented Wellington and Canterbury at provincial level, after being a part of the national Sevens programme. Playing for the Chiefs Manawa team, Steinmetz played in two Super Rugby Aupiki finals and she also played Sevens in Japan.

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Waikato beat Canterbury to win the 2024 Women’s Farah Palmer Cup Premiership final on Saturday.

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As seen on our Facebook wall last week: Wellington club rugby community – key connection dates for three-yearly competition review working group. Please see details below.