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- By Club Rugby contributors
In a semi-regular tradition, we look back at the club and college seasons, and a mix of the serious and not-quite-so.
Team of the Year: Tawa Under 85kg Ducks
After coming up short in last years final, the Ducks made no race of the lightweight comp this time around with a season that wasn’t just unbeaten, but utterly dominant. 11 matches played (Johnsonville defaulted to them), over 700 points scored, a perfect 50 competition points in the JC Bowl, and only OBU and Avalon held them to less than 40 points scored in a match this year (and both times the Ducks topped 30). Not even a weeks break in the finals could stop their momentum, pasting Poneke 73-19 in the semifinal and then defending champions OBU 46-10 to claim the JC Bowl/Paul Potiki Shield double.
Honourable Mentions: Petone Women, HOBM Colts, OBU Premier 2
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Men’s Player of the Year: Kyle Preston (Old Boys University)
New York Yankees icon Reggie Jackson once described himself as “the straw that stirs the drink”; when it comes to the Goats, that is their outstanding halfback who took another step forward in 2024. Already one of the region’s best, he was head and shoulders above his peers at the position this year with his play and deservedly the first pick for the Lions. He had a brief stint with the Crusaders during Super Rugby, but is this the year he picks up a full-time contract?
Honourable Mentions: Sam Clarke (Pare-Plim), Milan Kriletich (MSP), Akira Ieremia (Tawa)
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Women’s Player of the Year: Keira Su’a-Smith (Petone)
Still at school at Sacred Heart, the teenager is a precocious talent with an eye for the game well beyond her years, and was the deserving winner of the Erin Rush Trophy as the women’s Best and Fairest. Her performance in the Tia Paasi Memorial final was exceptional, and its no exaggeration that without her Petone would have been well-beaten by an experienced Ories side. Next for her is to add a kicking game which will come as she gets stronger, but for now there’s no limit on what she can become.
Honourable Mentions: Lavinia Lea (Petone), Hosanna Aumua (Avalon), Shakira Baker (Pare-Plim)
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Premier Most Valuable Player: Callum Harkin (Old Boys University)
At Club Rugby our view on the term ‘Most Valuable Player’ is this; if you took one player out of their side, what would they look like without them? For us, that’s OBU Callum Harkin. Without him -and no disrespect to understudies Tom Henderson and Malo Manuao – there’s no way OBU wins 15 of 17 games this season and aren’t Jubilee Cup champions once again such is his talent and influence on the side. At his best in the close games, you have to wonder if he even feels pressure at all on the field, and his performance in the decider was one of the best we’ve seen.
Harkin, with the Player of the Jubilee Cup final award.
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Rookie Forward of the Year: Harry Irving (Old Boys University)
Even before the season started the reigning College Player of the Year raised eyebrows in choosing to go to the Goats rather than his junior club Poneke. But having made his choice he made every post a winner, locking down the blindside flank for OBU and quickly becoming their go-to at lineout time. He took some lumps battling Tawa’s Hugo Plummer in their opening round playoff loss, but learned quickly from that and more than held his own in the Jubilee final where he scored a crucial try.
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Rookie Back of the Year: Ieti Campbell (Upper Hutt Rams): Going into the season Campbell was rehabbing an ACL tear suffered at the end of his Scots College career and it was questionable whether he’d take to the field at all. Johnsonville’s Jacob Kennedy made a bright start, but when Campbell made his starting debut for Upper Hutt in round 7 against MSP at Maidstone – not even nine months post-injury – he scored a hattrick and immediately gave the Rams a much-needed physical presence on outside.
Honourable Mention: Jacob Kennedy (Johnsonville)
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Most Improved Player: Leon Tuiloma (Upper Hutt Rams). Tuiloma started 2024 in strong form, highlighted by his try against defending champions Ories. He continued to impress and from round five onwards – barring a short injury break – was the Rams’ starting hooker. He made early season Wellington Lions squads and featured in the Centurions and made his NPC debut late in the season.
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Tries of the Year: It’s hard to go past this one from the Jubilee Cup final, the winning try by Old Boys University (also see the Butch Phelan award below).
This one here scored by Tawa on their Old Timers’ Day win over Johnsonville. This was the last play of the game to see them win 40-35.
A Club Rugby favourite was tis one scored by Ories wing Herman Seumanufagai in their 22-19 Bob Lendrum Cup win over the Upper Hutt Rams in round three of the Swindale Shield.
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Milestone of the Year: Dan Hewson (Eastbourne). On any scale, playing 300 matches for one club no matter the grade is quite the achievement. Hewson’s contribution to the small club on the east of the harbour has largely gone under the radar, but he’s been a massive part of keeping the Gulls one and only side flying. Regularly amongst the last to leave wherever his side has played, but not before he’s spoken to almost everyone there and ensured whatever mess his team have made has been cleaned up.
Honourable Mentions: Jason Love, Teru Time (both Wainuiomata), and James Coburn (Pare-Plim and other clubs), who all brought up 200 Premier matches played during 2024.
Also in June in the Horowhenua-Kapiti competition, Keith Milligan played his 200th match for Waikanae. This followed 173 matches played for his former club Paraparaumu, so he ended the season approaching 400 career games.
These were topped by Canterbury player Robbie Timo playing his 500th cub rugby match for the Sumner club on 15 June – the 53-year-old having played in most grades for the past three decades.
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It’s Been a While Award: Wellington Premiers: 43 matches, 1085 days. That’s how long it was between wins for the Axemen at Premier level before they overcame fellow battlers Avalon 19-13 in early June.
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Upset(s) of the Year: Tawa Colts. With a bit of a dearth of underdogs getting up this year, we’re going with the Lyndhurst youngsters. Tawa only just scraped in the John E Kelly Memorial playoffs by virtue of beating Norths in their head-to-head matchup in the Paris Memorial round-robin but once there they shook things up. Firstly, they beat second-ranked Petone 26-17 at the Rec, then overcame OBU 10-8 in a brutal arm wrestle in the city. They would go down 19-49 in the final but given how rampant that HOBM side were across the season that result is no shame at all.
Honourable Mention: Pare-Plim Women beating Ories for the first-time ever, New Zealand Under-18 Māori Ngā Whatukura upset New Zealand Schools 22-15 at St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton with Wellington College Head Prefect Ollie Church starting at lock.
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Turnaround of the Year: This goes to the Otago Spirit, or the Wellington Pride, however you look at it. One week, the Pride smash the Spirit 51-13 away in Dunedin to earn a home semi-final against the same side the following Saturday, only for them to forget the script and lose 38-51 to the same team seven days later. It is doubtful whether the Pride would have beaten Manawatu in the final and earned promotion back up to the Premiership but a shot at it would have been nice.
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Close but not quite: The Johnsonville Premiers. It was a case of heartbreak for the Hawks in the middle rounds of the Swindale Shield. They were pipped 35-40 on the hooter against Tawa (see tries of the season above), 24-25 by the Upper Hutt Rams and 28-29 by Paremata-Plimmerton in consecutive weeks. Johnsonville were 10th in the Swindale Shield with four wins and nine losses, but it could have easily gone the other way for them if they had won these games.
When the Rams beat Johnsonville 25-24 at Helston Park.
The HIBS First XV lost five games by less than a converted try, pipped on the siren by Wellington College (19-22), St Pat’s Town (18-20) and Tawa College (36-38). HIBS were last in the Premiership, but just two wins from those five close losses would have meant a solid mid-table finish.
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The Butch Phelan award for props running with the ball award OBU loosehead prop Gareth Ward-Allen scored two first tries in his starting debut in round three, then three months later it was his bullocking run late in the Jubilee Cup final that set up the match-winning try for Ty Poe in the final. Special mention to Xavier Numia for the Hurricanes against the Chiefs in a 20-17 win on 24 May. Numia told Sky Sport in one of the great post-match interviews. “I was doing the pukana eyes cause, I couldn’t see on the angle. When it went over, I was doing the Cheehoo’s.”
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Extra time thriller of the year: Two games here, both involving Oriental-Rongotai teams. Petone beat Oriental-Rongotai on ‘most tries scored in the final’ countback after the two teams drew 24-24 in the Women’s Division 1 Championship decider. Oriental-Rongotai defeated Petone in an extra time thriller in the Jubilee Cup quarter-finals on 13 July, both teams being tied up at 20-20 at the end of the regulation 80 minutes and again after 100 minutes, but Ories progressed because they scored more tries (three tries to one).
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A family affair award: On 18 May when Norths centurion Liki Siliga played over 60 minutes off the bench as an early sub for the Premiers in their draw with Poneke, while down the road at Ngati Toa Domain his partner Lisa started for the Pare-Plim women, and their son Reuben was in midfield for the Hammerhead’s Colts side.
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Most tries in a Premier match: Also on On 18 May – Five tries to Old Boys University centre Elijah Maene-Lokeni – the first five try haul in five seasons in Wellington Premier rugby. OBU won 74-7 over Avalon. Then in the last round of the Swindale Shield, Johnsonville’s Jacob Walmsley also scored five tries, in his side’s 43-17 win over MSP.
Referee milestone of the year: Jamie Fairmaid became the eighth person to referee 100 Premier games on King’s Birthday Weekend. Jamie refereed his 100th Premier match at Ngati Toa Domain in round nine of the Swindale Shield at the same venue as his debut match in 2015 between Paremata-Plimmerton and Petone B in the Hardham Cup. He went on to referee the Jubilee Cup final. Plus Steve Newson also brought up 100 Premier games on the whistle in 2024, but not all of them in Wellington rugby.
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Putting it all on the line: There were several, but one was the Jubilee Cup semi-final at a wet Lyndhurst Park in July when Tawa held on to beat Oriental-Rongotai 26-24. The knockout match finished with both sides out on their feet underneath Tawa’s own goal line after Ories had launched into a 90-second assault started inside their own half in trying to score the winning points. Ories knocked on almost on the tryline, and referee Hamish Mexted blew the fulltime whistle to the delight of Tawa and their supporters. Earlier in the season Mexted was hobbling on one foot at the end of the high-octane Wellington College v Scots College match.
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Scoring multiple tries in a final: When was last time – if ever prior to this year – that a player has scored four tries in a major Wellington club rugby final? HOBM left-wing Phelan Rona scored four for in his side’s Colts 49-19 win over Tawa. The HOBM team completed an unbeaten season, with Rona scoring 18 tries. The team scored 724 points in 16 matches.
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Scoring from the kick-off award: Joint winners on the Same afternoon at the start of June. Two fast starts at Upper Hutt and in Porirua in Premier games. Both matches kicked off at 2.15pm and by 2.16pm the first tries had been scored. At Maidstone, HOBM wing Kobe Joe-Vulu scored from the opening exchanges and at Porirua, Wainuiomata wing Raymond Va’a did likewise.
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Those we lost: Some people who are playing rugby in heaven now include: Connor Garden-Bachop; Willie Leota; Ralph Caulton; Rex Kirton; Norm Hewitt; Steve Hinds; Gerald Kember.
In the local game, Wellington Rugby, and particularly the Women’s game, lost one of its biggest supporters at the end of June. Terry Taumoli might not have been a household name, but he was ever-present at Ories women’s matches and Pride home games and usually in his camp chair irrespective of the weather, With four daughters amongst his five children, his support for the Women’s game probably isn’t a surprise with three – Fuamai, Janet, and Barbra – themselves having roles within the game here.
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Single-game performance of the year: Archie Sims, Wellington College’s baby-faced first five-eighths, had already scored in three ways to help Wellington College stay level in their notoriously difficult-to-win traditional meeting with St Patrick’s College, Silverstream when he thumped over an aptly left-footed, shockingly long, drop goal to sink Stream. Scoring all four ways is so rare Daniel Carter never achieved it in 287 first-class games. The aghast looks among home supporters afterward resembled those who’d spent a day at the Polkinghorne trial.
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College Player of the Year: Drew Berg-McLean – Overcame a petulant spray at a referee in June to become a New Zealand Barbarians representative. The all-action openside flanker captained St Patrick’s College, Silverstream to the Premiership and scored four tries in a traditional against St Pats Town. He was used off the bench for the Barbarians where he terrorised the hapless Samoans with a try assist and two turnovers in a short stint. Captained the Hurricanes U18s in their recent match against the Crusaders U18s.
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College Game of the Year: Wellington College rallied from 14-0 down to topple Scots College 21-17 in a fever-pitch atmosphere at Wellington College. Teina Hingston-Mill scored an outrageous try chasing a kick close to fulltime to win the game for Wellington.
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