Sideline Conversions 16 June (some rugby news and information to start the new week)

General action from the U85kg Tony O’Brien Shield fixture on Saturday between Eastbourne and HOBM. Photo: Warwick Burke.

Congratulations to Oriental-Rongotai for their maiden Swindale Shield win on Saturday. As we noted in Saturday evening’s round-up, the presentation is this coming Saturday after their match against Pōneke.

It is Wellington club rugby Women’s Finals Day on Saturday, the finals at Rugby League Park are:

• Division 2 Izzy Ford Cup: Wainuiomata v Paremata-Plimmerton, 11.00am
• Division 1 Tia Paasi Memorial Cup: Petone v Northern United, 1.30pm

Round 12 of 13 Swindale Shield fixtures at a glance this coming Saturday:

• Marist St Pat’s v Avalon (Joe Aspell Cup), Evans Bay Park.
• Wellington v Old Boys University (Dean Gifford Memorial Cup), Hataitai Park.
• Hutt Old Boys Marist v Upper Hutt Rams (Gillies-Melville Cup), Hutt Rec,
• Tawa v Wainuiomata (Chris Stirling Cup), Lyndhurst Park.
• Paremata-Plimmerton v Petone (Ken Gray Cup), Ngati Toa Domain.
• Oriental Rongotai v Pōneke (Jimmy Grbich Shield), Polo Ground.
• Northern United v Johnsonville (Barlow Trophy), Porirua Park.

Wellington schools host the two Wairarapa schools in the Premiership this Saturday, with St Pat’s Town and Rathkeale meeting on Evans Bay Park and Scots College and Wairarapa College playing at Scots. Both games are 1.00pm kick-offs.

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As always at this time of year, rugby fans can get their fix during the week with college rugby. In First XV fixtures on Wednesday, Rongotai College host St Pat’s Silverstream at their school grounds at 1.00pm, ahead of St Bernard’s College and Wellington College meeting at the NZCIS at 5.30pm.

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Rest in peace Adam Vardey – here he is playing halfback for Norths in his last Premier match against Poneke in the 2014 Hardham Cup final. A hugely popular player who left his mark on multiple clubs and teams he played for including Horowhenua-Kapiti and the Cook Islands. 

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Oriental-Rongotai won the Swindale Shield for the first time on Saturday. Since their Jubilee Cup victory in 2011, which was also their first since 1944 in collaboration with Poneke, Ories have not recorded a losing season in the Swindale Shield. From 2011 to 2024, the Magpies achieved six top-three finishes without winning. Ironically, their worst record during this period has been 7 wins and 6 losses, a feat they achieved three times, including in 2023 – the year they last won the Jubilee Cup. Since 2011, Ories’ Swindale Shield record stands at 120 wins, 54 defeats, and 4 draws.

The last unbeaten team to win the Swindale Shield was Hutt Old Boys Marist in 2019, who won 10 matches in a row and secured 49 out of a possible 50 points. Norths achieved 10 wins and a draw in 2011, earning 51 out of a possible 55 points. In 2010, they completed a perfect 11 for 11, collecting 53 out of 55 possible points.

Ories are the fifth club in the past six years to win the first round Swindale Shield – but of the past five only OBU last year went on and did the double and won the Jubilee Cup.

• 2020: Marist St Pat’s
• 2021: Old Boys University
• 2022: Petone
• 2023: Paremata-Plimmerton
• 2024: Old Boys University
• 2025: Oriental-Rongotai

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Club Rugby was disappointed to hear about the brawl during the Women’s semi-final match between Poneke and Paremata-Plimmerton. Incidents of fighting among female players are extremely rare, contrasting sharply with some unsavoury incidents in male rugby. Sanctions for such behaviour must be both strict and consistent.

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Wellington club rugby Swindale Shield top try scorers after 11 rounds of 13:

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Wells hits the century – top Swindale Shield points scorers after 11 rounds:

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There was no scoreboard a couple of weeks ago for the Wellington College vs Rongotai first XV match which probably contributed to the confusion over the scoreline – it was originally shown on the College Sport Wellington site as 84-3 but subsequently corrected to 74-3.

Last Wednesday a temporary electronic scoreboard was in place, but – unfortunately confusing spectators who hadn’t spotted this – it started the second half at the senior grade 40 minutes rather than college grade 35 minutes and then had the incorrect score of 15-15 when the final whistle went. The only thing worse than no scoreboard is an incorrect scoreboard.

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Every grade of college rugby except Premier and Premier 2 was cancelled on Saturday owing to rain and wet fields.

Genuine question. If you were a teenager why would you play rugby, a winter sport, when your games are liable to be cancelled after rain during the week? Wouldn’t you just go play basketball or maybe water polo where you are guaranteed to get wet. A different era, but Sideline Conversions was racking its brains for when they played rugby at school (circa early 1990s) and can think of one Saturday in five years that it was cancelled because of really bad weather. In fact, playing in rain and mud was really fun.

Perhaps the Wellington region needs a dedicated sports field for rugby on a field like Petone Rec 4 that is covered or has a retractable roof,  like a giant louvre roof, so teenagers can increase their chances of playing every week!

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We remain locked out of our website database so can’t actually do anything until fixed or until we move on to Plan C which would be a new website for this for 2026, but from 2005-2024 there were some 10,000 live names in that database (including NPC players for several seasons). In that entire time, there were two instances of players with the same same, which we had to distinguish between, such as calling one guy Jim and the other Jimmy. Now there are two in one week!

First, Junior Paulo started playing halfback for the Wellington Axemen. Not the same Junior Paulo midfield back for HOBM. Then on Saturday there were the Raymond and Ray Va’as! Raymond Va’a has played several games this year for Wainuiomata on the wing. On Saturday his twin brother Ray Va’a made his Premier debut in his place!

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A red card late in the first half of the Swindale Shield match at Evans Bay Park between Marist St Pat’s and Hutt Old Boys to MSP second five Isiah Petelo. Sideline Conversions was told that Petelo is fast approaching his 200th Premier match milestone, so a possible three-week standdown might put this in jeopardy this season.

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A plea was put on Sunday for the return of Colin Te Pohe’s 50^th game WRRA Blazer, which was stolen from the Petone Workingmen’s Club.

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Two tries for Kienan Higgins in his Taradale side’s 40-12 win over Napier Technical in the third round of the Hawke’s Bay Maddison Trophy on Saturday. Halfback Sheridan Rangihuna, another former HOBM player, kicked five conversion and a penalty for Napier Pirate over Napier Old Boys Marist in their 48-28 win.

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Seven tries for Petone Ponies wing Harmony Kautai on Saturday in her side’s 90-point semi-final win over Marist St Pat’s. By our our count that’s 29 tries in nine games and getting up in displacing Ayesha Leti-L’iga in the excitement stakes.

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One try for Luca Rees on Saturday for Norths, so by our count he is now sitting on 99 Premier tries (combined for Ories, Petone and Norths).

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It’s the 2025 Super Rugby final this coming Saturday between the Crusaders and the Chiefs.

In his illustrious Super Rugby career, Damian McKenzie has played 139 games for the Chiefs and scored 1,454 points with 91 wins. Of those, 206 points and ten wins in 20 matches are against the Crusaders, although none of those victories have come in playoff matches.

Interestingly, Blues star Beauden Barrett has lost his last six consecutive matches against the Crusaders and is 0-4 in playoff matches against the 14-time champions.

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Rotorua Boys’ High School defeated Hamilton Boys’ High School 34-28 on Saturday to win the Moascar Cup, which is akin to the Ranfurly Shield for secondary school rugby. This marks the first time since 2003 that Hamilton has lost consecutive home games in the Super 8.

In the Hurricanes region, Palmerston North Boys’ High School currently tops the Super 8 standings with four wins out of four games. Hastings Boys’ High School achieved an impressive victory over Gisborne Boys’ High School, winning 50-12. Two other contenders that could potentially emerge alongside the Wellington Premiership winners are Feilding High School and Lindisfarne College from Hastings. These two teams faced off in an excellent match on Saturday, with Feilding prevailing 45-26. Although Lindisfarne had been unbeaten in the Central North Island competition and scored four tries, they struggled to contain Feilding’s physicality.

Feilding High School: 45 (Kailan Elmers, Peni Havea, James Tuituba, Nixon Foreman, Van Campbell, Kingston Ngata, Elisala Malili-Malo-Lauano tries; Foreman 5 conversions) Lindisfarne College: 26 (Fletcher Mackay 2, Gus Munro, Noah Rogers tries; Rogers 3 conversions) HT: 19-0

Want to watch a cracking try? Check out Kahn Charlton’s 51st-minute effort on Whakaata Māori for Tauranga Boys’ College in their 31-24 win against Napier Boys High School. They’ll be calling him ‘Little Lurch’ on Cameron Road after that one.

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Peter Umaga-Jensen has announced he is heading to play in Japan for the next phase of his career. The photo below (credit Mike Lewis) is one of the all-time great shots showing a professional player connecting with juniors from his club. PUJ loves playing for his club and his record of playing for Wainuiomata over 60 Premier matches whilst being a contracted professional player is right up there. Hopefully we see him again in local competitions in future years, and it would be great if he reconnected with his brother Thomas and some of the old 2014 Scots College First XV guard too.

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The last word: National Volunteer Week

Today marks the start of “National Volunteer Week”, which honours the collective energies and efforts of volunteers across the country. As readers will agree, when it comes to the delivery of sport to local communities in New Zealand, volunteers are the means by which we enjoy the benefits of the games we love to play. According to Volunteering New Zealand, this year’s theme celebrates “the power of volunteering to bring people together.”

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