Sideline Conversions 22 September (some rugby news and information to start the new week)

Stanley Solomon runs around to score in Wellington’s record-breaking win over Southland on Sunday, against some of his future teammates when he joins the Highlanders later this year. Photo: Stewart Baird.

The rugby spotlight falls on Whanganui this week with the three-day HYRC U16s tournament.  There has already been one round played last weekend, but rounds two and three are today and tomorrow with finals day on Wednesday.

The teams are:

• Division A: Hawke’s Bay (defending champions), Wellington, Wellington Māori, Manawatu
• Division B: Poverty Bay (defending champions) Horowhenua-Kapiti, Wairarapa-Bush, Whanganui

Club Rugby hopes to attend one or both days Tuesday/Wednesday.

For more and scores after Monday’s games visit: https://www.hyrc.org.nz/ 

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The Wellington Lions’ previous biggest win against Southland was 61-3 in 1999. Brad Fleming and Jason O’Halloran scored two tries each, David Howell scored a try and kicked five conversions and Riki Flutey scored a try and kicked three conversions.

For a full wrap of this game, look out for Peter Marriott’s #statattack coming up here tomorrow, this one could break the internet with its many gems.

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What a meteoric rise for Johnny Falloon. This time last year he was at Rathkeale College finishing school, on Saturday he was making his debut for the Wellington Lions as a late injury replacement on the bench for Hugo Plummer. Falloon has has a big year, a regular starting OBU Premiers player in a team that was rebuilding after the highs of last year to most recently playing well for the Wellington U19s.

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The Wellington Lions provided an injury update of sorts for midfielder Riley Higgins last week, posting a photo on their socials of him training at NZCIS at Upper Hutt and apparently running freely. No word on a return to play for Higgins.

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A fantastic match for Counties Manukau on Saturday from halfback Cam Roigard in his latest return from injury. With Roigard playing well, the Steelers heaped misery on Auckland in their battle of the southern motorway fixture, winning 49-28.

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A  great win for Pōneke in their National U85kg fixture at Colin Maiden Park on Saturday, beating the University Slugs 50-31 after leading 33-7 at halftime. They now meet Christchurch’s High School Old Boys in this coming weekend’s final at Eden Park, which is the curtain-raiser to the first test against Australia. This is great, but what about spectators who only want to watch this match and not the test? Can they be accommodated or are they shut out of supporting their team to national lightweight glory?

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Pat Quin was a huge supporter of this website and what we did to promote local rugby over the past decade. We are working on an article about him and his contributions to the game for later this week.

His funeral will be this Wednesday 24 September at 11.00am at the Mana Cruising Club, Ngati Toa, followed by Cremation at Whenua Tapu for close friends and family, with post-funeral food and drinks at the Pare-Plim Rugby Club.

A link to the live stream https://vimeo.com/event/5386595/c83198e386 here will be accessible 20 minutes before the ceremony.

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The New Zealand Schools beat the New Zealand Barbarians U18s 48-37 at St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton. Interestingly, St Patrick’s Silverstream captain Elijah Solomona scored a try, as did Louis Treacy, who made the Australian Under-16s out of Melbourne. Now he’s at Lincoln University following in the footsteps of his brother Xavier, who represented the New Zealand Under-20s this year. Southland Boys’ first five Jimmy Taylor was lively for NZ Schools, scoring an outstanding 40 metre try gathering a kick. Linston College blindside Sione Katoa steamed from halfway for a try and was at times explosive.

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The name Memphis Mura won’t mean a lot to people in Wellington, but to the members of the Masterton Red Star club it means plenty. A prop, Mura debuted for Wairarapa Bush in Saturday’s win over Buller and in doing so was the first representative from the Rams since before Covid. It also ticked off another milestone as it meant a player from each of the provinces eight Premier clubs has featured for the Bush this season.

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The man Mura propped against? Buller captain Anthony Ellis, who turned out for the Axemen for three seasons before making the move fulltime to the coast. For those that can recall, he still has the dreadlocks.

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The big news in the Heartland Championship is the punishment handed out to early-season leaders West Coast. The Greymouth-based union have been fined $5000 and a deduction of 15 competition points for a third player eligibility breach in 15 years. It is understood that the player concerned was registered to a club in the province, but had not played in the required four non-playoff matches to qualify to play as a local with it alleged that he had not played any matches at all.

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Wellington had a sole player in the Black Ferns in their just completed Women’s Rugby World Cup tilt, Ayesha Leti L’iga. She was on the bench in their semi-final loss to Canada on Saturday morning. We were wondering how many matches she has played this year, actually more than what we thought. Leti-L’iga finishes her 2025 season having played 12 matches, including three off the bench, and having scored eight tries.

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Otago beat Canterbury to lift the Ranfurly Shield on Saturday, winning 38-36. Whoever writes the updated Shield Fever (by Lindsay Knight) book will have plenty to write about this season. Otago’s sole challenge this year before they can put it away for the summer is strugglers North Harbour.

The last time Otago had beaten Canterbury before Saturday’s 38-36 win in a Ranfurly Shield match was on 18 August 1948, when they won 31-0. It was the sixth successful defence out of the 18 they would have before losing to Canterbury in 1950 by 8-0. Otago’s first-ever Ranfurly Shield win also came against Canterbury in 1935. Otago starts its eighth Ranfurly Shield tenure with a record of 45 wins, 46 defeats, and three draws in 94 Ranfurly Shield matches.

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Some interest in our article last week looking at a Rookie Team of the Season. Several messages received about this and players that were perhaps left off this list.

We take it on the chin that we omitted Cody Lokotui from this when it was first published – he should have been No. 8, and then a reshuffle with the loosies accordingly. He was left out because of a failure to check facts that this was his first year in Wellington club rugby! It was in our minds that he played several matches for the Axemen last year too. No excuses, but the Axemen are the club that uses the most number of players each season of all clubs and are constantly debuting new players at all stages throughout the competition.

A few other players too, points noted. One of these was Phelan Rona. The HOBM wing/fullback wasn’t left out because of neglect, but the back three of Sione Baker, Josh Love and his teammate Dom Ernst all impressed this year too, as did the player we named on the bench Hunter Andrew. Being a Jubilee Cup winner Rona would at least be coming off the bench if we wrote this again.

Look out soon for our annual Best & Fairest Team of the Year – which will be post the WRFU awards in a few weeks. Plus our annual Club Rugby season awards article, which is just a bit of fun to look back on some happenings and achievements at the end of a long season. Any contributions to that last one please let us know.

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This is an interesting piece in the NZ Herald on Saturday morning, titled Sky Sports commentators are being asked to speak more te reo on air

This is a subject we wrote about in this column recently. With developments in AI (and with an app either provided by the broadcasters or a third party one) viewers will soon be able to choose which language and speaking style and speaker they want to listen to broadcasts. Probably with a 5 second delay while the AI translates it, you will be able to watch rugby and sports commentaries in Latin narrated by Julius Caesar (perhaps not him as no recording exists) or by Spud from Trainspotting or Winston Churchill or whoever and whatever language you select in a dropdown menu.

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The sevens season will be underway soon, at least on the training fields at most clubs.

None have been ‘confirmed’ yet, but it looks like there will be three consecutive weekend’s of sevens tournaments in November: 15 November (Feilding Yellows tournament), 22 November (WRFU AA Leg 1) and 29 November (WRFU AA Leg 2). There might more more as well. Prior to that there will be the annual school Condor 7s at Naenae College on Labour Day Monday.

Prior to all that, there is the annual Mana 10s tournament in Palmerston North on 11 October (previously in early December). Details in this poster below:

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For the first time, it seems that media at local NPC games are now divided by class. There is the agency guys who shoot for mighty mastheads like Stuff and they get to wear red vests and then there is everyone else that contributes for their own channels and that includes us in that category. They wear blue vests. An interesting development considering that NPC games are now community games with TV cameras.

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There were reports last week that Crusaders season tickets are going up 40 percent next year with the opening of their new stadium.

There will be a honeymoon period for this new stadium for a year, perhaps two, as most Cantabrians will want to experience a match there at least once. But at those prices, rugby is in danger of becoming a rich man’s sport to watch live, if its not already.

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Do the Black Ferns now need an overhaul on their playing style? They could start playing like Canada and England, then they still have the best outside backs in the world but they perhaps need to start channeling 1960s All Blacks teams in their own way and go for the power game up front.

England extended their world record winning streak to 32 consecutive matches and added another accolade to their burgeoning catalogue of dominance, overcoming a dogged France 35-17 in the second Women’s RWC semi-final.

The Red Roses have now won 48 consecutive matches at home, surpassing the All Blacks’ record of 47 successive home victories from a 33-6 win against Australia on September 19, 2009, in Wellington, to a 21-24 loss to the British & Irish Lions at the same venue on July 1, 2017. England last lost a home international match on November 19, 2016, at the Twickenham Stoop, when they were defeated 25-20 by the Black Ferns, with Kendra Cocksedge named Player of the Match for scoring 20 points.

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This is interesting – a growth region for rugby and opportunities for some foreign players to start playing there perhaps?

Super Rugby Americas Expansion Brings 4th Argentine Pro Team

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Rest in peace Stuart Fairburn.

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Players of the Hurricanes U16s Tournament since 2012 have been:

2012: Leni Apisai (Wellington)
2013: Nese Solia, (Wellington)
2014: Braydon Iose, (Manawatu)
2015: Naitoa Ah Kuoi, (Wellington)
2016: Malo Manuao, (Wellington)
2017: Ropati So’oalo, (Wellington RFU)
2018: Treyah Kingi-Taukomo, (Hawkes Bay)
2019: Dominic Ropeti, (Wellington)
2020: Tournament not played owing to COVID
2021: “Tournament Team” not named owing to COVID disrupted Tournament.
2022: Ryder Crosswell (Manawatu)
2023: Isireli Qaranivalu (Hawke’s Bay)
2024: Noah Rogers (Hawke’s Bay)