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Kyle Preston tussles for the ball with Canterbury players on Saturday. Preston has been called into the All Blacks as injury cover for Cam Roigard for their upcoming trip to Argentina. Other Wellington players in the squad are Ardie Savea, Du Plessis Kirifi, Peter Lakai, Billy Proctor and Ruben Love. Asafo Aumua is injured.
Monday morning edition, updates expected: It’s Finals week in the Wellington First XV Premiership, with this coming Sunday’s decider between St Pat’s Silverstream and Wellington College at Porirua Park on Sunday afternoon at the early time of 12.05pm.
Plenty more on offer this week and on Saturday, with this Wednesday’s rugby featuring the Wellington Girls Final at the same venue. Kick-off at Jerry Collins Stadium between defending champions St Mary’s College and Wellington East Girls’ College is 6.00pm.
There is also a traditional match on Tuesday, with St Bernard’s College and Bishop Viard College kicking off at the school bell at 3.00pm.
Look out for our preview on Friday, but local matches at a glance this coming Saturday are:
- Wellington club rugby Reserve Grade Division Division 2 Alan Seerup Cup Final. Pōneke Ruffnuts v Upper Hutt Rams Thirstys, Maidstone Park 2, 2.45pm.
- U85kg Knockout Cup Round 2. OBU Scallywags v Avalon, TBC
- Wellington Fijians v Whanganui Pasifika, Hutt Rec 12.00pm.
- Wellington U19s v Canterbury U19s, Rugby League Park, 1.00pm
- Wellington Centurions v Whanganui, Hutt Rec, 1.30pm
- Horowhenua-Kapiti v Wellington Māori, Playford Park, 2.00pm
- Manawatu Pasifika v Wellington Samoa, Palmerston North TBC
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The Wellington Lions head to Hamilton play Waikato on Saturday afternoon in round two of the NPC.
The Wellington Pride play Tasman in Nelson on Saturday afternoon in their Women’s Farah Palmer Cup opener.
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The All Blacks squad to go to Argentina is named today. No Cam Roigard (injured), so will they take a new halfback and is Kyle Preston in the mix? Finlay Christie is the likely replacement, but we thought we read he is country hopping to Scotland so it could affect his eligibility?
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It’s local teams squad naming season, so sprinkled below amongst content are some of the squads/teams that have come across our desk these past few days. Starting with the Centurions men’s team below:
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What about Manawatu’s start to the NPC!
In Brayden Iose’s 50th game.
They built a big lead and survived a comeback, but had the fitness and team culture to pull it back. Tofuka Paongo made his debut off the bench, while Wellington’s other player in the squad, Pena Va’a was injured and didn’t play.
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Wellington players Nick Grigg (former Petone) and Kienan Higgins (current HOBM) combined in Hawke’s Bay’s midfield in their opening round 54-14 win over Counties Manukau, both on the scoresheet early. The Magpies are always going to be tough playing at home at McLean Park, home of some of the best first-class cricket lunches in the country.
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A good weekend for the Viljoen family. Older brother Jordi was halfback and a key try-scorer for the Turbos in their opening round win against North Harbour. Younger brother and first-five Jamie kicked the winning penalty on fulltime for Palmerston North Boys’ High School against Rotorua Boys’ High School, with Jordi watching on from behind the posts.
Palmerston North Boys’ High School host Napier Boys’ High School this coming Saturday in the first of the Hurricanes schools knockout games to decide the Top 4 tournament qualifier. This is a repeat of their match last week in which they scored a try at the end to win the famous Polson Banner.
Staying in the Manawatu, Feilding High School meet St Peter’s School, Cambridge, in this coming Saturday’s Central North Island final in Taupo.
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Staying on the halfback theme, former Wellington College and Wellington U19s captain Luke Campbell made his North Harbour debut on Friday night against his former team Manawatu. Campbell played 21 matches for Manawatu 2022-24, after playing 41 times for Bay of Plenty 2016-21. Additionally, Richard Judd was looking as lively as ever for Bay of Plenty on Sunday.
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Is it time for Auckland and North Harbour to enter into amalgamation talks? Both are barren wastelands of support bases at their home games and perhaps they would be stronger back together and thus NZ Rugby would be too.
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Some fairly sketchy NPC coverage this past weekend.
For example, a perusal of the NZ Herald on Friday morning carried absolutely nothing about the previous night’s competition opener at Eden Park between Auckland and Waikato! But it did carry a story about a goal post that fell off in a game and almost took someone out…in 2019.
Additionally, the traditional media outlets are often now behind a paywall, so their content can’t be read by most or by those who don’t know to bypass their paywalls (which we are not going to promote here).
Same with watching the NPC. One idea Sky should do is offer significantly stripped down coverage option of sports. Like being able to purchase to unlock and watch individual games on your phone or tablet for bite sized affordability such as $2.99 per game. It could just carry one camera feed and no commentary and even no replays. It could expire one hour after the game ends so you have to watch is live or soon after not on demand later on.
Having written all that above, there was something in news feeds about NPC games being shared between Sky and TVNZ next year?
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Staying with Sky, it is understood they are swanning in and carrying the Wellington Premiership final this coming Sunday. A big reason for its early 12.05pm kickoff – not about the players and spectators but about their scheduling predilections. But here is where we put in a plug for our friends at Huddy Sports. They are broadcasting the final and it is live and free on their You Tube channel and we strongly encourage readers and local rugby followers to please support local content providers! We will also cover the final here on this website of course, just not live.
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Since 2017, St Pat’s Silverstream has reached the Premiership final every season, achieving 86 wins, 10 losses, and a draw in the 2021 final. Silverstream was unbeaten for 28 consecutive games between 2017 and 2019 and won the title outright in 2017, 2018, 2022, and 2024. They have won 17 consecutive games since their 27-24 defeat against Wellington College on June 12, 2024.
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For Waikato fans, Thursday, July 31, at Eden Park will always be remembered as the day the “Koro Club” brought down Auckland. In the 79th minute, after trailing 35-29, replacement first five-eighths Lima Sopoaga broke free from halfway and scored close to the posts, bringing the score to 35-34. Aaron Cruden, also a seasoned player, successfully converted the try, giving Waikato their first lead of the match after being down 32-12 at one stage. The two former All Blacks have a combined age of 70, while Oli Mathis is just 20 and Tepaea Cook-Savage, who provided the final pass for Sopoaga, is 24.
Sopoaga has signed with Waikato for just $1 after meeting coach Ross Filipo in a bar. He explained that he wasn’t doing much except spending time with his family after returning to New Zealand following more than 3,000 days abroad. His last try in the NPC was for Southland in a 49-14 victory over Manawatū on September 19, 2016.
Lower Hutt-born All Black Ross Filipo has coached Waikato to 26 wins in 46 matches, including the 2021 NPC Premiership in their 100th season.
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The inaugural Noff Cup was awarded on Saturday to the UH Thirsty Rams as the round-robin winner in in Reserve Grade Division 2. The Thirstys and the Poneke Ruffnuts contest the final this coming Saturday for the Alan Seerup Cup.
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A note for media gatekeepers and operations people. Why the strict rules about where photographers can shoot and what they can do and whether they can stand up or sit down at games? How is it that you can shoot freely and openly in club rugby and then the next week put up barriers and virtual force fields around the players, many of whom are the same guys? NPC matches these days are basically community games with TV cameras, not test matches.
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A solid Wellington contingent in Samoa’s Manu Sina side for the upcoming Women’s Rugby World Cup. Norths’ Nina Foaese, MSP’s Faalua Tugaga and Ories duo Sinead Ryder and Fa’asua Makisi comprise the quartet of local players selected, and they’ll join three others with ties to Wellington in recent Pride players Ana Afuie (MSP), Drenna Falaniko (MSP & Petone), and Davina Lasini (Wainuiomata & Petone) who are all currently playing in Australia.
Another Wellingtonian, Maddie Feaunati, is in England’s Red Roses squad.
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There’s also good Wellington representation in the two neighbouring Heartland sides. Wairarapa-Bush are being coached this year by OBU’s former Jubilee Cup-winning coach Jamie Williams with Paddy “Cyclops” Gough as an assistant and Hayden Smith as one of the managers, and it’s perhaps no surprise they’ve used two of their loan player spots on Goats duo Gareth Ward-Allen and Folau Finau Vea. Also in the squad is bogan-coiffered front-rower Lewis Bush who played for Upper Hutt last season, former Johnsonville loosie Marcus Ale, and former Avalon back Charles Mataitai.
Horowhenua-Kapiti have four players named with links to Wellington in props George Jacobs (Poneke) and Ted Northcott (Pare-Plim), utility back Jayson Aquila – the twin of Avalon centurion Jordan – and recent Petone flyer Max Hosking.
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The Porirua Park Lions’ loss to Canterbury was their first at Jerry Collins Stadium since the 6-15 loss to Northland in 2022. They had won four in a row there before Saturday.
Since 2020 they have a 75% win rate with 81% win rate at the Stadium, 57% at Porirua Park and 100% in their only match at Hutt Rec.
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The first round of the annual Hurricanes Under 20 Series saw Horowhenua-Kapiti and Wairarapa-Bush earn maximum points, in fixtures played in Napier and Masterton on Saturday.
Read more and keep up to date at: https://www.hyrc.org.nz/
This coming weekend all four sides converge on the Bulls Rugby Football Club for Rounds 2 and 3 of the Series, to be played in back-to-back matches on Saturday and Sunday, with the Hurricanes Heartland Under 20 side to be named by Head Coach Darren Larsen to compete in the upcoming Central Region Shield competition, at the conclusion of the weekend’s fixtures.
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Cool poster below.
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The Wallabies closed their home series against the British and Irish Lions with a 22-14 win.
The Lions were 11-1 on their 1989 Australian tour. The last unbeaten tour was in 1974 in South Africa with 21 wins and a draw. In 1891, the Lions won all 20 matches.
Whippet winger Max Jorgensen has scored four tries in 11 Tests. He’s only 20 years old.
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Jerry Collins Stadium on Saturday and Tauranga Domain on Sunday – a tale of two crowds. Saturday’s game had perhaps 850 paying spectators and maybe the smallest crowd ever in the NPC era for a Wellington-Canterbury game, Tauranga’s several thousand.
Wellington Stadium lowest excluding last season (because the numbers haven’t been published yet) and excluding the Covid restricted matches is 1,228:
29 Aug 2019 Mitre 10 Cup Rugby: Wellington Lions v Counties Manukau 1,228.
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Did Ruben Love leave his socks at home, and had to borrow Canterbury ones, or Kyle Preston’s Crusaders ones? No, he was wearing Waikanae club socks, his junior club on the Kapiti Coast. It must have been Lions Club Day as Callum Harkin came on wearing Old Boys University socks and Tom Maiava in the background has his Ories socks pulled up. Almost all other players had their socks around their ankles.
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Bay of Plenty had lost seven of their last eight games against Tasman, but mangled the Mako 37-7 to start their NPC season. All Blacks winger Emoni Narawa marked his 50th match for the Steamers by successfully kicking a dropped goal. Notably, the Steamers have only kicked two of these in the NPC since 2004; the last one was scored by Chris Noakes during a 35-31 win over the eventual champions, Canterbury, in 2011. In his career, Noakes played a total of 29 games for the Blues and Highlanders, and he made 26 appearances for Otago and 16 for Bay of Plenty.
Ron Preston kicked 13 dropped goals for Bay of Plenty in the 1985 season alone. Bay of Plenty won 10 out of 17 games that season. Preston was a Māori All Black who played 152 times for the Steamers and scored 846 points, including 37 dropped goals.
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Since 2004, South Africa’s women have won 39, lost 46, and drawn two of their 87 official Test matches. Their 41-24 thumping of the Black Ferns XV this past weekend is arguably their most significant result. South Africa played very combative rugby with evidence of formidable size but growing athleticism and skill. Since 2022, South Africa has a record of 21-12-1. Wellington’s Justine McGregor did score a cracking try in the defeat.
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Keep up to date with our photos website at: https://clubrugby.smugmug.com/2025
