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Members of the Wellington Centurions side after their 116-point match against Canterbury B on Saturday, a positive way to finish the season for most of this side. Photo: Andy McArthur.
Updated: It’s the last week of winter, with the spring equinox coming up this weekend, and with it the 2025 rugby season will be almost over.
There is still a fair bit of rugby to watch and follow this coming weekend and in the following week, with the third and concluding round of Hurricanes competition U18 matches taking place on Saturday. All three of Wellington’s teams are playing away, these games being:
Division A
- Hawke’s Bay v Wellington Centurions, Napier
- Poverty Bay v Wellington Samoa, Napier
Division B
- Whanganui v Wellington Māori, Whanganui
- Horowhenua-Kapiti v Wairarapa-Bush, Levin
The Division A match between the Hawke’s Bay U18s and the Centurions doubles as a final to decide the John Hornal Cup, while Wairarapa-Bush will win the Division 2 GNC Cup should they win in Levin. More at: https://www.hyrc.org.nz/news/hawkes-bay-wairarapa-bush-in-box-set-in-u18-competition.html
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The Centurions U18s Girls also join their counterparts from Manawatu, Hawke’s Bay, Poverty Bay and Whanganui in Napier from Saturday-Monday in their annual U18s camp/tournament.
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The Hurricanes U16s tournament starts this time next week and is being held at Whanganui Collegiate. Club Rugby will look to head up for this, or some of it!
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In other rugby still to come is the Wellington Lions, who have three round-robin matches to come, two of which are at home at Porirua Park starting this weekend against Southland.
Their three games to come are:
- Saturday 20 September v Southland Stags, Porirua Park, 2.05pm
- Saturday 27 September v Taranaki, New Plymouth, 2.05pm
- Saturday 4 October v Bay of Plenty Steamers, Porirua Park, 2.05pm
The top 8 will progress past this to the quarterfinals. The bottom half of the points table reads:
In broad-brush scenarios (check back on Friday for more in-depth number crunching) the Lions will need to win at least two of these three games to come to sneak into the top 8, otherwise they are relying on other matches too much.
‘Bring a mate for round eight’ will be a catch-cry for the Lions this Saturday as they look to pack Porirua Park and topple the Stags at home.
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The Heartland Championship is as tight as ever after five rounds, with lower North Island teams all handily placed. Wairarapa-Bush are third on 17 points, Whanganui are fifth on 16 and Horowhenua-Kapiti are sixth and also on 16.
Games this weekend see Wairarapa-Bush hosting winless Buller in Masterton and the clash between the Whanganui and Horowhenua-Kapiti sides in Whanganui.
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The All Blacks have only won 4 of their last 11 Tests at Wellington Stadium and conceded their highest home scores, 38 against Argentina in a 2024 loss and 43 against South Africa. The most points South Africa has ever scored against the All Blacks was 46 in a six-point win at Ellis Park in 2000.
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A Heartland Championship debut for Emmanuel Solomona for Horowhenua-Kapiti on Saturday.
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Where to now for the Wellington Pride?
Only a few years ago they were right up there amongst the top teams, now they can’t escape the second division as they have missed out on the final that is between Otago and Northland in Dunedin. The Pride did well to come back from 0-12 down to level at 12-12, but Northland pulled clear and held on in their semi-final in Whangarei on Saturday.
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A Wellington representative U85kg side met a North Harbour U85kg side in a match in Taupo on Saturday – result still to be confirmed.
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The New Zealand Schools and New Zealand Barbarians sides will be playing against each other soon.
This will be a rare fixture between these two national sides as they stopped playing each other after the Barbarians came within a whisker of beating the NZ Schools side when they met in Palmerston North in 2015.
Only a last minute 80-metre try to first five-eighth Josh McKay (now playing in Scotland) gave the New Zealand Secondary Schools team their 20-18 win. That was too close for comfort for the NZ Schools officials and they effectively closed this match down after that.
As noted last week, St Pat’s Silverstream captain Elijah Solomona is the sole Wellington schools representative in either of these sides, with MSP and Wellington U19s first year prop Corban King the other.
Tawa College’s captain and second-five Malachai Osman is the other Wellington player in these squads, in the NZ Māori U18s team.
As sent to us and compiled elsewhere, players in these three teams by region:
- Auckland 16
- Waikato 10
- Manawatū 9
- Canterbury 8
- Hawke’s Bay 7
- Bay of Plenty 5
- Otago 5
- Tasman 5
- Southland 4
- Wellington 3
- North Harbour 2
- King Country 1
- Taranaki 1
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Arise Arese. Last week the Hurricanes announced the arrival of another new player for next year.
The player they announced is Arese Poliko. This is positive and we hope he is a world beater and becomes a first choice player and wins games, especially as the region is already stacked with home grown loose forwards looking to burst out.
Given that the Hurricanes are playing all but one of their home games in Wellington next year, it will be interesting to note how many Wellington players are in the 23 man match-day squads early in the season, and how that transpires in a lift or otherwise in crowd numbers, and whether a return to them being a regional team that plays in three-four different venues would be justified.
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The All Blacks’ previous biggest home loss was on 29 August 1964 at Athletic Park, Wellington, 5-20 to Australia. They called in the Night of the Long Knives.
Australia wasn’t given much chance of winning the third Test in 1964. They’d lost the previous two Tests and struggled past Bush 19-13 in their final midweek fixture. However, Men in Black reported, “It was soon obvious that the Wallaby team, playing with great resolution, were going to be difficult to beat.”
The only points of the first half were a try scored by wing Stewart Boyce. A penalty to fullback to Terry Cassey doubled the Wallabies advantage before first-five Peter Murdoch scored for New Zealand after receiving a pass from halfback Des Connor who represented both countries.
A turning point was at 6-5 when Phil Hawthorne nailed a 40-metre drop goal. The lethargic All Blacks pack couldn’t rally and precise kicking by Casey and a second try to Boyce secured Australia their largest victory in New Zealand.
The fallout would be spectacular for the All Blacks. It was the last Test for Don Clarke, Sir John Graham, Ralph Caulton, Allan Stewart, and Barry Thomas, who collapsed in the dressing room with severe concussion. It was the only time Ken Gray lost in 50 matches for the All Blacks and the only time Colin Meads played No.8.
Stewart’s twin brother Jim also played for the Wallabies. Hawthorne (21 Tests) later switched codes to league and became a dual international when chosen for the Kangaroos against Great Britain in 1970.
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Whilst the Springboks ran through the All Blacks in the second half on Saturday, the Black Ferns did much the same to the South African women’s team at the Rugby World Cup in their quarter-final. They won 46-17, and will play Canada in Bristol in this coming weekend’s semi-final.
There was an alleged biting incident by a French player in their comeback 18-13 win over Ireland in the other quarterfinal, to set up the other semi-final between France and England.
There was also a forward pass by Australia late in their game against Argentina on Saturday, and nothing alleged about that, it was blatant.
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Potential Divisions
What to Expect
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We thank our sponsors and supporters for powering us through another almost 30-week rugby season and hope to be back in 2026!
This column is a collaborative effort, so if you have news and information or tidbits to include please get in touch.
Please bookmark our photos website – like the hall of visual records of local rugby – https://clubrugby.smugmug.com/2025
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Now that the senior 15s (club and representative) season is over, who would be your ‘Rookie XV’ for 2025? The criteria would be mostly but not limited to first year players in Wellington senior rugby (not necessarily based on age either, as then we would just name the Wellington U19s team!)
