Promising start this season for Petone and Jacob Waikari-Jones

Petone’s Jacob Waikari-Jones gets his pass away in his second round starting debut against the Upper Hutt Rams. Photo: Andy McArthur.

• By Steven White

Could this be Petone’s year?

In recent years, Petone have tended to promise much but have faded by mid-season – usually a run of bad-luck injuries being the primary cause.

They have nevertheless not won the Jubilee Cup since 2005 so championship title success would be well celebrated.

Jacob Waikari-Jones is one of a group of new players at the Village and he is already contributing plenty to their campaign. This past weekend, Petone beat Wainuiomata 57-13 and Waikari-Jones, who has returned this year from four years away after leaving Wellington College in 2021, was one of their best players on the day.

He scored two tries and kicked five conversions for 20 points to help ignite Petone’s backline and keep the scoreboard ticking over after they weathered an early Wainuiomata storm.

This weekend Waikari-Jones and Petone make the trip over the other hill to play Northern United. The sixth round Swindale Shield match is also for the Henderson Trophy, while the Player of the Match wins the Collins medal, after late cousins Willie and Jerry.

As well as trying to help Petone win what would be their fifth match in six to start 2026, the game will carry extra meaning for Waikari-Jones, for two reasons.

First, he was a Northern United junior, having grown up in Titahi Bay and played several seasons for the junior club. This will be his first match as a senior on Porirua Park (albeit on Porirua 2 as the game has been moved from the stadium because of a women’s football game there on Sunday). Additionally, his mum Tangi was Norths Premier manager for a stint a decade ago when he was growing up.

Second, it will mark a year almost to the day (10 May last year) since he suffered a shoulder injury while playing club rugby for the historic Cottesloe club in Perth.

“I moved over to Perth and was playing for Cottesloe, but I sustained a season ending shoulder injury just a few games in,” he explained. “I broke my scapula and my coracoid process, which is a bone that lives deep under all the muscles, tendons and ligaments. For surgery they needed to break my collarbone as well.”

He had surgery and was living in a sling for three months, before heading home to start his rehabilitation with Alec Cannons, who is one of the Hurricanes physios.

There were a couple of reasons why he joined Petone –  family and because of the pull there by good mate from his days playing at University in Dunedin, Jermaine Pepe.

“My uncle has played for Petone for a long time so he was a driver there, while another reason was at the insistence of my good mate Jermaine Pepe who I was teammates with at the University club in Dunedin.”

“We were talking about where I was going to play and he sort of made the decision for me by setting up a meeting with the coaches. They were great, and I felt that was what I needed and from there I didn’t consider going anywhere else.”

“My uncle had his wedding in Rarotonga and when I went to him then about potentially going to Petone his eyes lit up and that was a clincher.”

Uncle Tamahou Waikari has been a member of the Premier Reserve team or several years. He was formerly with the Brotherhood and Saxons teams too.

The Petone Premiers are happy with their start to the season.

“We are hard on ourselves, never settling. But that is a good thing and we know none of our jerseys are safe so that is demanding the best every day out of everyone. If you are not starting, you are working hard to start and if you are in a starting jersey don’t ever settle because that is not yours.”

Waikari-Jones can slot in at either first-five or fullback but he sees himself as more of a 10 in this team. Pepe is a specialist fullback, while others like Rory Woollett are there as first-fives. Thompson Tukapua is another player due back soon from over a year away from a knee injury, although his return to play could be through the Colts.

Waikari-Jones spent 2022-24 living and studying in Dunedin – he currently works in sales at the Social Project gym in Tory St.

He was in the Highlanders U20s in 2022, and in 2024 made two national teams, the New Zealand Universities and the New Zealand Māori.

Both were special for him, and the New Zealand Māori camp and match against the New Zealand Heartland XV came after a full season playing for West Coast in the Heartland Championship.

More games than not in the Heartland Championship are thrillers, but the final two games of that season stick out more than most.

The first was his team’s trip to Levin to play Horowhenua-Kapiti in the Lochore Cup semi-final, in which they won 52-51, scoring a try in the left grandstand corner at the end.

“There wasn’t a lot of defence going on that day, and the last three minutes were fairly stressful! That weekend was also my 21^st, so it was a beauty and we celebrated in Wellington that night.”

That semi-final featured other several current and recent Wellington club rugby players, including Esi Komaisavai and Ted Northcott (Paremata-Plimmerton), Brandyn Laursen, Willie Rua and Kapu Broughton-Winterburn (HOBM) and Toby Harahan-Kennett (Norths).

The second was the following week when they travelled to Te Kuiti to play King Country in the Lochore Cup final (for fifth place, after the top four contested the Meads Cup).

More high scoring saw the final tied at 34-34 after 80 minutes with Waikari-Jones’s conversion attempt to win hitting the post.

This meant 20 minutes of extra time and King Country were leading 46-37 when Waikari-Jones and the West Coast backs ripped it wide in the 100^th minute for a try in the far corner that was unconverted and they lost 46-44.

He fell agonisingly short of glory that day, but Waikari-Jones treasures that season, and experiencing the culture of his team and the competition was invaluable.

“The Heartland Championship was great to play in, and it opened the door and gave me the opportunity to be selected for the New Zealand Māori team in the camp and match that followed. The whole experience was completely different to any other rugby environment I have been in, but it was amazing overall.”

On the field at Whanganui, the New Zealand Māori side beat the New Zealand Heartland XV 47-14.

West Coast looked after him too, meeting his travel arrangements to and from Dunedin each week. The team would typically assemble and train together on Fridays and go their separate ways during the week.

Rewinding the clock three years, there were two more barnstormers he was involved in for the Wellington College First XV in 2021, both against St Pat’s Silverstream.

The first of these is what we at Club Rugby just refer to as the ‘Stanley Solomon game’ – the 31-27 match at home that remarkably was Wellington College’s first win over Silverstream on home soil since 2009. This saw a freak match-winning try by first-five Solomon running back a kick from halfway, which fullback Waikari-Jones converted.

“That year we set our goals to win our traditional against Silverstream, St Pat’s Town and Rongotai. Beating town after a few years losing that one built our confidence for the Silverstream game, and then we when we did more research into that game we found out it was longer before we toppled them.

“They got out to a hot start, but in the second half we chipped away at the scoreboard with some penalties, and then that memorable try by Stan happened and we won.”

Several weeks later they met Silverstream again in the semi-final, which saw Emmanuel Solomona kick a last-gasp 40 metre penalty on a wide angle for Silverstream to win 33-32.

“There was flooding on our field, and Neemia Tialata and I spent all Friday morning driving around Wellington trying to find a field to host the semi-final on. Then we settled on Hataitai Park.

“I was standing under the posts watching that kick fly over. Getting so close and not getting there really stung.”

Back to the present day, Waikari-Jones is hoping his Petone side can play itself into the position to play in some big games later this season and it goes without saying that they come out on the right side of the ledger in close ones.

He is also looking forward to finally making his debut at the Petone Recreation Ground, which could be as soon as next weekend when Petone hosts Oriental-Rongotai for the Jim Brown Cup.

The Collins Medal

The Collins Medal was presented in 2017 to the Player of the Day in annual first round Premier matches between Petone and Northern United. It commemorates cousins and former players Willie (Petone) and Jerry (Norths) Collins who both passed away in tragic circumstances . Jerry died in a car crash in June 2015 and Willie in a diving accident in December 2015.

Collins Medal winners

2017: Quaid Laumatia-Martin (Northern United)

2018: Peter Pili (Northern United)

2019: Tupou Sopoaga (Petone)

2020: Willie Fine (Petone)

2021: Luca Rees (Northern United)

2022: Riley Higgins (Petone)

2023: Ryan Imrie (Petone)

2024: Sam Tonise (Petone)

2025: Connor Tuifao (Petone)

Waikari-Jones scoring a clutch try in the 2021 traditional between Wellington College and St Pat’s Town. Wellington College won 31-18.