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

Above: Flashback to the 2007 Swindale Shield clash between Upper Hutt and Wainuiomata. Upper Hutt won 19-17. These two teams meet this year in round 11 on 13 June. All photos are here: https://clubrugby.smugmug.com/

Plenty of activity behind the scenes as the autumn leaves of the off-season gather (or in the case of Sunday night’s storm perhaps some tree branches and other debris too). Some six weeks now until the start of the competitions proper.

Clubs have been releasing their pre-season schedules on their individual pages, so we will starting compiling a list of what is coming up throughout March leading into the start of the relevant Senior Championship competitions that we cover. To be published in one place on this website soon.

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The next two weeks see the Academy series of matches between Wellington, Hawke’s Bay and Manawatu in Palmerston North (exact venue and times to be confirmed). Like last year, these will be games of two halves formats played on 21 and 28 February, with the winner awarded the Sam Doyle Memorial Trophy.

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This coming Saturday there is also the Foxton 10s tournament in Foxton – details to be confirmed.

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The stage is set for a big Super Rugby opener for the Hurricanes this coming Saturday when they host the Moana Pasifika side featuring Ories loose forward Dominic Ropeti, Ories back and former All Black Julian Savea, Norths first-five Jackson Garden Bachop and former Hurricane and Kia Toa second-five Ngani Laumape.

Meanwhile the Hurricanes will be chomping at the bit to take the field, and on Monday morning named Du Plessis Kirifi and Jordie Barrett as co-captains for the season. But they will start without Wainuiomata’s Ruben Love. As per the media release:

Hurricanes playmaker Ruben Love has sustained an ankle injury while training with the squad in Palmerston North earlier this week.

He will undergo further assessment early next week to determine the extent of the injury.

The Hurricanes will provide an update once that process is complete.

Love himself social media-ed from his own accounts that everything would be fine, but the above media advisory sent out on a Saturday afternoon appears ominous.

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Incessant, often awful kicking was a theme in the first round of Super Rugby Pacific. In the Highlanders’ 25-23 win over the Crusaders, there were 80 kicks in total, including 31 by the halfbacks. That is more than the 2025 final, which had 73 kicks, 26 by the halfbacks, on a dour, rainy day. In the Chiefs’ 19-15 win over the Blues, there were 55 kicks with 13 by halfbacks. The best spectacle of the round was Moana Pasifika’s 40-26 win over the Fijian Dura at Churchill Park, Lautoka. There were 44 kicks in that game.

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Who has the best box kick in Wellington club rugby? Not that we want to encourage this!

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Miracle Faiʻilagi faces the toughest assignment in Super Rugby Pacific, replacing 2025 Super Rugby Pacific Player of the Year and All Blacks centurion Aride Savea as captain of Moana Pasifika after their best season. The bulky blindside began that unenviable task in the best way by scoring a hat-trick in Moana Pasifika’s 40-26 win over the Fijian Drua. Faiʻilagi also scored one in a 40-31 victory over the Hurricanes in 2025. Kyren Taumoefolau (Blues, 27-21, Eden Park, Auckland 2025) and Feleti Sae-Ta’ufo’ou (Crusaders, 45-29, Apollo Projects Stadium, Christchurch, 2025) are the other Moana Pasifika players to score a hat-trick.

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New Zealand Rugby has launched their new Super Rugby Development programme with a series of matches running from 14 February to 11 April.

The programme will run alongside the first nine weeks of the Super Rugby Pacific season with the Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Highlanders and Crusaders playing five fixtures each.

This replaces the U20s series of matches and tournament in Taupo, which in turn succeeded the U19 national tournament.

Squads are a mix of contracted Super Rugby players requiring game time, and emerging and developing players including opportunities for Provincial Union National Development Contract.

The pros are that this series mostly doesn’t cut into club rugby.

The Hurricanes Hunters games are as follows:

• Saturday 21 February: Crusaders v Hurricanes, Linwood RFC Christchurch, 12.30pm
• Saturday 28 February: Blues v Hurricanes, University Rugby Club, Auckland, 2:00pm
• Friday 6 March: Hurricanes v Chiefs, NZCIS, 11.30am
• Friday 20 March: Highlanders v Hurricanes, Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin, 4.30pm (curtain raiser for Highlanders v Hurricanes Super Rugby Pacific game at 7.05pm)
• Saturday 28 March: Hurricanes v Blues, Venue TBC, Wellington, 2:00pm

Update: The series started on Saturday 14 February, with the Blues beating the Chiefs 50-28 and the Highlanders defeating the Crusaders 33-17.

The Hurricanes’ first game as listed above is a very curious time and venue. Why would they host this at 11.30am on a Friday morning at their training ground?

The only explanation is cost. By doing so and making it an extension of a normal training day and keeping it on the down low costs of staging the game can be kept to a minimal. No crowd means no security and no health and safety and traffic plan. Ditto, the second home game’s venue might be dependent on new money coming in from the main team’s two home games at Wellington and Napier to pay for it, although the Hurricanes are playing the Reds that afternoon at Wellington so making it a curtain-raiser is the obvious call.

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The fourth Rugby Jamboree, hosted by the New Zealand Rugby Museum, is in Palmerston North on the weekend of 21 and 22 March. Saturday’s venue is the Marist Sports clubrooms, Pascal St.  Sunday’s venue is Wilkins Theatre, Te Manawa, 326 Main St. It is a free event.

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The Black Ferns are holding a training camp in Wellington from 16-27 February.

For most of the 41 players attending this camp, Wellington will be a neutral venue. Just one of them, Ayesha Leti-I’iga, is a current Wellington player, and one more, Marcelle Parkes, who plays for Canterbury, has Wellington roots.

Where are the Wellington region’s up and coming female players? Considering St Mary’s College is one of the top 3-4 girls First XVs in the country (but can’t get past Manukura to show it on the national stage).

It will be interesting to see the make-up of the Hurricanes Poua side when it is named soon. We have already dubbed this year’s Hurricanes the Strangercanes for there being just 13 of 51 players (contracted plus training group) who are Wellington aligned. So they might be called the ‘Peregrine Poua’.

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Scotland ended England’s 12-game winning streak with a stringing 31-20 victory in the second round of the Six Nations at Murrayfield, Edinburgh. Scotland has won five of the last six internationals against England, whose only win in that span was a 16-15 win in London last year.

Most turnovers by an international in 2025:

Fraser McReight – 24
Manuel Zuliani – 14
Maro Itoje – 11
Pablo Matera – 11
Ardie Savea – 11

Nigel Owens on new Super Rugby Pacific laws: https://www.planetrugby.com/news/nigel-owens-super-rugby-law-trial-will-result-in-inconsistent-ref-calls-and-reward-negative-acts

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Old Boys University have revealed their new clubrooms for 2026 being Leroy’s Bar, at the foot of Plimmer Steps at the top of Lambton Quay.

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Petone held its annual Petoneman event on Saturday. In still, overcast conditions, Premier halfback Cam Ferreira won the 40km event that consists of two interchanging run and bike legs.

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Welsh rugby woes continued on Monday morning with their national team well beaten by France 54-12 in Paris. Old Boys University’s Taine Plumtree came off the bench in the second half.

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Hawke’s Bay readers will enjoy reading about the Ranfurly Shield defence against Wellington in 1926 that sent the challengers packing. Coming up later this week in part 2 of our annual series looking at what happened 100 years ago.  Part 1 looking at club rugby in 1926 is here: https://clubrugby.nz/wp/2026/02/13/what-happened-100-years-ago-part-1-club-rugby-2/

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What has happened to the Australian Roar sports website? It is online at https://www.theroar.com.au/ but now into its fourth week with no fresh content. With most online newspaper content in New Zealand now often behind a paywall – think the NZ Herald, the Dom Post, ODT etc. – it is becoming increasingly difficult to get easy access to information and news. It was predicted about a decade ago (in relation to television as well) that the result of this was going to be the increasingly fragmentation of news and content, for all sports, not just rugby. That apart from consumers that had a stake in the sport or were directly involved, then much of it would compartmentalise and whither away and die for the fairweather readers and viewers.

This column here published on Mondays is a small way of putting this content back in one place, as is our website in general.

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Contributions

This Monday column is also a collaborative effort and contributions are welcome. Please get in touch at editor@clubrugby.co.nz

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Additionally, email advertiseclubrugby@gmail.com and Club Rugby will respond accordingly.

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