Sideline Conversions 5 May (some news and information to start the week)

Veteran lock Teofilo Paulo makes a concerted surge at the defence against the Wellington Axemen on Saturday. The Eagles won 55-17. Photo: Peter McDonald.

Monday supper time updates:  Week six club rugby coming up and that means considerable amounts of club and college rugby for supporters to follow.

Round 6 Swindale Shield matches at a glance (Premier 2 draw replicates the Premiers):

• Avalon Wolves v Wellington Axemen, Fraser Park, 2.45pm.
• Johnsonville v Old Boys University (Bill Cavubati Cup), Helston Park, 2.45pm.
• Hutt Old Boys Marist v Northern United, Hutt Rec, 2.45pm.
• Upper Hutt Rams v Tawa (Mexted Motors Cup), Maidstone Park, 2.45pm.
• Paremata-Plimmerton v Poneke, Ngati Toa Domain, 2.45pm.
• Petone v Wainuiomata (Darren Larsen Cup and Bill Brien Challenge Cup defence) Petone Rec, 2.45pm.
• Oriental-Rongotai v Marist St Pat’s, Polo Ground, 2.45pm.

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Tipping competition leaderboard after five rounds – we have a new leader and he or she may or may not be a Petone supporter:

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A potential blockbuster final fortnight coming up for the leading teams in the Women’s Rebecca Liua’ana Trophy competition.

The ‘big four’, Petone, Norths, Ories and MSP, are all tied on 21 points with two rounds to play. Who does each of these sides have left in their run home to possible first round glory?

• Norths: MSP (A), WoA (H)
• MSP: Norths (H), Poneke (A)
• Ories: Avalon (A), Petone (H)
• Petone: WoA (H), Ories (A)

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The New Zealand U85kgs opened their tour of Sri Lanka with a sizable win over the Sri Lankan Tuskers, with Poneke’s Pasia Asiata bagging a double. Scores were:

New Zealand Under-85s: 50 (Pasia Asiata 2, Jamie Petford, Ben Megson, Jack Laity, Jarred Percival, Francis Morrision 2 tries; Jarred Percival 4 cons, Taine Cordell-Hull con ) Sri Lanka Tuskers: 10 (Dahan Wickramarachchi try; Nigel Ratwatte con, pen) HT: 26-7.

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The Wellington Axemen strike Sideline Conversions as one of those teams that is not far off winning, It is a cliche, but they need to play the percentages a lot more. They build pressure and play positively but then give it all away with unforced errors that are punished by the other side. Once they eliminate most of these they will start winning. They should beat Avalon this coming Saturday and then after that they have got it in them for at least one giant-killing win!

However, and this is a rather large elephant in the room, their lack of a Colts side compounded by their Premier 2 team defaulting to HOBM’s in the Harper Lock Shield is a big one to address. We were told that just eight players turned up to play for their second side on Saturday.

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Has Wainuiomata had a bigger win at home at William Jones Park as they had on Saturday against Northern United? Both the amount of points they scored (67) and margin of victory (45).

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The Hurricanes wore their club’s socks on Saturday night. Fullback Callum Harkin played his junior rugby for Eastbourne. Harkin recalled never losing a game for Eastbourne from the age of 5 to 12. When defeat finally happened, it was on his birthday on 8 April (to Hutt Old Boys Marist).Harkin laughed; he was crying 20 minutes before full time, knowing his team was doomed. He mourned the loss as “the worst day of his life.” Harkin would win a Hurricanes Under-15 title at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, before making the First XV.

Ruben Love was rocking his Waikanae RFC socks, being a former Waikanae junior.

A bit of a shame that the majority of players wear their socks around their ankles so you couldn’t see which clubs they were all representing. Case in point Billy Proctor, wearing MSP socks on his club’s Old Timers’ Day, but you wouldn’t have known.

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Until Saturday, Caleb Delany was the only New Zealand-based forward to start every Super Rugby match (11 matches, 743 minutes). He was listed to start against the Chiefs but was a late withdrawal. His replacement, Zach Gallagher, topped the tackle count with 22 and was adept at addressing restarts with a couple of soaring catches. While the Hurricanes lineout was occasionally wayward, the home forwards mauled strongly in their 35-17 win over the Chiefs. Four tries as a replacement in first-class rugby? In 2021, Dane Coles did it in a 57-23 win for the All Blacks over Fiji in Dunedin.

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Between August 20, 2023, and February 22, 2025, Bailyn Sullivan only scored one try in 26 first-class matches.

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On the Auckland union’s website on Saturday – do they still play club rugby in Auckland? Perhaps all the coverage is on social media. But, as  other unions will soon find out, there is no history, archives or record keeping on social media.

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Sideline Conversions read on X on Friday that the new Christchurch Stadium’s price tag is $683,000,000. That’s over two thirds of a billion dollars. For a 30,000 sports stadium.

Perhaps the people of Christchurch want this, so good on them. But imagine like we often do if thinking was flipped around like a pole shift. In this scenario, that money is instead allocated to community sport in the city or region. How many Maidstone Park facilities with gold tapped bathroom facilities could you build for even some of that money? One per sports ground in Wellington, from Helston Park to the Polo Ground. Then you could have a sizable trust fund running in the millions of dollars left over to allocate to send teenaged sports teams and groups overseas on regular tours to further enhance their sporting and life experiences. How about a community sports field in Wellington with a roof or canopy over it to protect it or semi-protect it from the weather to mitigate the effects of council officers blanket cancelling grounds after a bit of rain as has been happening with increasing regularity these past few years, and if you are a teenager why wouldn’t you play basketball and get a guaranteed game?

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It is the same upside down and inside out thinking that we are getting increasingly miffed about with mainstream media’s sports coverage. It seems they often sycophantically cover and promote the various professional sports teams and completely ignore community sport. These days the professional teams and leagues and competitions can promote themselves on Tik Tok and Instagram and the like and people who are interested in them will know what’s going on that way.

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New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has announced a six-day U18 camp culminating in a North v South match this July as part of expanded girls’ high performance pathway programme.

Fifty female U18 women’s players will be chosen to take part in a high-performance campaign in Hamilton from 7-12 July. Camp attendees will be split into two 25-strong squads for the historic North v South match at St Peter’s School in Cambridge on Friday, 11 July.

The North squad will be selected from girls playing their rugby at a school or club within or north of the Provincial Union boundaries of East Coast, Bay of Plenty, King Country and Taranaki. The South squad will be selected from girls playing at a school or club within or south of the Provincial Union (PU) boundaries of Whanganui, Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay.

So a team comprised of players from the best two schoolgirls teams in the country, Manukura and St Mary’s College, with a couple of guest players from Christchurch Girls and elsewhere against a Hamilton Girls’ High School-led team. This is a good idea!

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The May Rugby News is out, featuring former MSP and Wellington U19s coach Clayton McMillan on the cover.

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Following our story last week with Caleb Robson, so spent some time in Sydney recently, we had a look at the line-ups for this weekend’s fifth round Shute Shield competition. There were a number of familiar names in the teamsheets, including recent and former Wellington competition players Presley Tufuga (ex-Poneke), Curtis Ambrose, Malachai Tia (Ories), Keelan Whitman, Logan Love and Ivan Fepule’ai (MSP) and Bruce Kauika-Petersen (Norths). It got us thinking that perhaps a Wellington Barbarians side could enter the Shute Shield. They could play pre or post season games each year against the Wellington champions.

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College Rugby Chat

A defeat for Wellington College over Napier Boys’ High School on Saturday, a fixture for the Amner Cup, which has a rich history.

In 2000, Napier were Super 8 champions and narrowly beat Wellington 23-20. Later in the season, Wellington beat Napier 18-15 to eliminate ‘Sky Blue’ from National Top Four contention. Neemia Tialata was the prop for Wellington that season.

Wellington’s first win over Napier Boys’ High School was 18-14 in a “most exciting season” of 1981 that saw Wellington win 17 of 21 games. Tim Ritchie, who later scored 2,509 runs for the Wellington cricket team, was captain of a side that scored 72 tries, wingers Dean Walker and Andrew Scott responsible for 29 of them. Future Lower Hutt Major Ray Wallace and current Wellington Rugby Union Vice President Richard Boag were members of the side.

In 1993 Wellington College had a modest 11-9 record but they did win the annual Quadrangular and beat Napier BHS 28-27. Down 24-15, Matt Wilson scored the last 13 points, including a 40-metre penalty goal with the last kick of the game.

Speaking of Wellington College, there is an apparent permanent winter-long scaffold set up on the driveway side of the ground for filming matches. Sideline Conversions is aware that Sky Television is making a comeback in the First XV space and they are looking at the Wellington College v St Pat’s Silverstream traditional on 11 June. Good for them, but it doesn’t mean they can go into bully mode like they were starting to do before they closed their last operation, and the likes of Club Rugby and Huddy Sports will be there too covering this match and others.

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Perhaps it could be seen as troubling to some the plight of the Scots College First XV this year, losing their latest fixture by 60 points to St Pat’s Town.

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Hastings Boys’ High School is unbeaten in 2025 and shapes as a leading contender in the Hurricanes region after a 41-26 win over St Patrick’s College, Silverstream. Hastings’ strength is counterattacking from turnovers, with very good catch and pass skills, and playmakers who see gaps and set up the play to exploit that. Silverstream fell behind 33-0 at halftime but rallied strongly in the second half through set pieces and rigorous pick and goes. Silverstream was missing key backs Fletcher Copper (10) and co-captain and fullback Will Davis. Silverstream’s scorers were Ryder Thompson, Vaitupu Vaitupu (Double V), Corus Taylor-Lefao and Abraham Smith.

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