Sideline Conversions 3 August (some rugby news and information to start the new rugby week)

The National U85kgs Knockout Cup is underway, with Paremata-Plimmerton advancing to the second round with their win over Wellington. They play Eastbourne this week in one of two games in Wellington.

Monday morning edition – updates expected later on: It’s semi-finals and finals this coming Saturday in the Reserve Grade, semi-finals in college rugby and week two of representative rugby. Games at a glance this coming Saturday  include but not limited to (check back here for our preview at the end of this week):

Club

• Reserve Grade Division 1 John Davies Cup semi-finals: Poneke Ruffnuts v Paremata-Plimmerton and Johnsonville v OBU Righteous Pink Ginners.
• Reserve Grade Division 2 Alan Seerup Cup final: OBU Mixed Veges v Wainuiomata Legacy
• National U85Kg Knockout Cup:  Tawa Ducks v Marist St Pat’s, Lyndhurst Park, 2.30pm and Eastbourne v Paremata-Plimmerton, H.W. Shortt Park, 2.30pm.

College

• Premiership semi-finals: Wellington College (1) v Rathkeale College (4) and St Pat’s Town (2) v St Pat’s Silverstream (3)
• Premier 2 semi-finals: St Pat’s Silverstream 2nds (1) v Kapiti College (4) and St Pat’s Town 2nds (2) v Aotea College (3).

Representative 

• Whanganui Heartland squad v Wellington Centurions, Cooks Gardens
• Wellington Māori v Wairarapa-Bush Heartland squad – Maidstone Park 2pm
• Whanganui Barbarians v Wellington Fijians, Whanganui
• Auckland v Wellington NPC Round 2 (Fred Lucas Cup), Auckland, 2.00pm
• Wellington Pride v Hawke’s Bay Tui (pre-season), Palmerston North
• Manawatu Development  v Horowhenua-Kapiti Heartland squad, Palmerston North
• (Saturday and Sunday) Hurricanes Heartland U21s Development Series Rounds 2 and 3, Bulls
• (Sunday) Manawatu v Southland NPC Round 2, Palmerston North

+++++

The Wellington Centurions (AKA the People’s Lions) will be hoping they can get their season underway on Chunuk Bair Remembrance Day against the Whanganui Heartland squad away at Cooks Gardens.

A short-sharp six-game programme through to the end of this month is now a five-match block with their game against Wairarapa-Bush cancelled on Saturday owing to the home team having 21 players down with a cold or the flu.

This coming Saturday they head to Whanganui to play the home team’s Heartland Championship squad as the latter prepare for their opening Heartland Championship game the following weekend.

+++++

The Wellington Māori back-up from their 11 tries to 5 defeat to the Horowhenua-Kapiti Heartland team on Saturday to host the Wairarapa-Bush squad at Maidstone Park.

There is no Wellington Samoans this year, owing to funding issues, so just the Centurions, the Māori and Fijians sides this year playing out of Wellington.

+++++

Marist St Pat’s unveiled a giant blow-up doll on Saturday, perhaps called Marist Man (we think that’s its name). Well done there! Below: the team runs out under its backdrop.

+++++

President’s Day at Ngati Toa Domain this past Saturday!

+++++

Du’Plessis Kirifi’s omission from the All Blacks is one of the harshest in recent memory. It appears the coaches believe he’s too short to compete against the behemoth Springboks’ back rowers. But remember, a short, scavenging David Pocock won a Rugby World Cup quarter-final for Australia in Wellington in 2011, outpacing a big, “gumpy” South African loose forward trio. Doesn’t a quicker style of play suit a flanker who is faster across the ground and good in isolated areas? Pocock won eight of his 12 Tests against South Africa. Meanwhile, Kirifi had seven tackles, three turnovers, scored a try and set up another in Wellington’s 52-31 loss to Hawke’s Bay in the opening round of the NPC.

How bad was it for Wellington? In all eight losses in their past 12 games, they have conceded 30 or more points. The Magpies’ three previous wins at Hnry Stadium had been by a combined six points. Wellington have played 143 games at Hnry Stadium with 103 wins. The only other time they conceded a half century was on October 9, 2016, when Taranaki won 54-31. Rookie Stephen Perofeta scored three tries at fullback. In 2002, when now All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie was Lions coach, they lost 49-35 to Waikato and 47-27 to Auckland. Those two teams contested the final in Hamilton, with Auckland winning 40-28. Waikato had 11 All Blacks for their Wellington rout, with an All Blacks trio of Keith Lowen, Regan King and Bruce Reihana combining for 39 points. Visiting Auckland had 13 All Blacks, including Carlos Spencer, who contributed 19 points, and Doug Howlett, who scored two tries.

Hawke’s Bay’s biggest-ever win against Wellington was a century ago, in 1926. During a great Ranfurly Shield era when they defended the Log O’ Wood 24 times between 1922 and 1927 and produced iconic All Blacks like Maurice Brownlie, George Nepia and Bert Cooke (131 tries in 119 first-class matches), the Magpies destroyed the McLean Park visitors 58-8. Lindsay Knight, in his book Shield Fever, recounted the journey home for Wellington’s players.

“And as the Wellington team left Napier by train for home they got a constant reminder of the hammering they had suffered. The clickety-click, clickety-click, clickety-click of the train wheels sounded horribly like 58-8, 58-8, 58-8.”

+++++

A century on, Hawke’s Bay laid on four tries in the first 20 minutes to lead 26-0. Taranaki neutrals watching would have been having flashbacks of 2004 v Wellington at this point.

It could have been worse had  Hawke’s Bay won more of their own lineouts and had better discipline. Wellington also lost most experienced back on the park, Losi Filipo, to an apparent ankle injury inside the first 10 minutes.

The Lions won the last hour of the match 33-26.

To the visitors’ credit, some of their players were in hot form. Established players like Folau Fakatava, Tyrone Thompson and Jonah Lowe were complemented by young fullback Will Cole out of the Wairarapa and Hunter Morrison out of Palmerston North Boys’ High School. Harry Godfrey, out of Whanganui Collegiate, looked sharp returning from injury, while former St Pat’s Silverstream and HOBM tighthead prop Joe ‘Apikotoa was in top form.

+++++

Shoutout to Alex Hewitt who came on at tighthead prop in the second half to make his Wellington Lions debut. Hewitt has recently been with the New Zealand U20s and it must have been a special moment for him packing down for his first scrum against Hawke’s Bay, the team his late father and former hooker Norm played 92 matches for from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s.

+++++

The Wellington U20s went down 38-41 to the Waikato U20s in their opening match of the year in Taihape on Saturday. There was a big comeback involved but they ran out of clock. They have an internal camp this weekend.

The second and third rounds of the Hurricanes Heartland U21s competition are at Bulls this Saturday and Sunday. This involves Whanganui, Wairarapa-Bush, Horowhenua-Kapiti and Poverty Bay, from which the Hurricanes Heartland U21s will be selected to play the Wellington, Manawatu and Hawke’s Bay U20s in the upcoming Central Shield competition.

++++++

The Manawatu Turbos were also overwhelmed in their NPC opener in sunny Northland. It was 14-14 late in the first half, but the Taniwha ran clear in the second spell and won 40-14.

+++++

The Wellington Pride announced they had selected 63 players for the upcoming Farah Palmer Cup. That’s 19 more than the All Blacks will take to South Africa. The squad includes 38 forwards. Wellington has nine senior teams, meaning 72 starting forwards each weekend. Half of them are in the rep squad!

+++++

+++++

Julian Savea will coach the Mahurangi seniors in Auckland next year, effectively ruling out a return to Super Rugby Pacific in 2026. Savea played for Wellington in their pre-season match against Taranaki on July 24 but wasn’t selected for the Lions’ opening NPC match against Hawke’s Bay. Divad Palu from the 2024 Australia Under-20s was preferred in midfield, and Reo Matsushita, who played four games for the Kubota Spears on the wing, was also selected. Will we see Julian in the 2026 NPC?

+++++

The gap between the top four and the bottom six in the Wellington First XV Premiership was wider than the holes in Wellington’s beleaguered water infrastructure. In 20 matches involving the leading quartet against the languishing sextet, the average score was 61-8. In 14 of those 20 games, the winning team scored over 50 points and St Pats Silverstream twice cracked a century. Fourth-placed Rathkeale finished 11 points ahead of fifth-placed St Bernards. The records of the top four are below.

• Wellington College: 8-0: 354-11, 39/40
• St Pats Town: 6-2: 397- 180, 6-2, 34/40
• St Pats Silverstream: 6-2: 547-80, 32/40
• Rathkeale College: 6-2: 262-140, 29/40

Fletcher Cooper scored three tries and kicked 12 conversions from 16 attempts, for a gluttonous personal haul of 39 points in St Pats Silverstream’s 104-0 slaughter of Mana College. It’s not the Silverstream record. In 1982, Jeff Karam scored 10 four-point tries in a 108-14 win over Pōneke Under-19s. The Wellington Premiership record is likely the 44 points scored by Buxton Popoali’i for Wellington College in their 114-0 win against Upper Hutt in 2007.

The winner of the Wellington Premiership final on August 16 will play Lindisfarne College from Hastings (CNI Hurricanes 1) in the first qualifying round the following weekend for the National Top Four, held the first weekend of September. The top three teams in the Hurricanes region in the Super 8 are Napier BHS, Palmerston North BHS, and Hastings BHS, in that order.

+++++

Why has Senio Sanele missed out on the Wellington Lions this year?

+++++

Some further NPC thoughts:

Radio Commentary: Gone

It is understood that whoever on-sold the broadcasting rights to NZME to commentate Lions NPC games were asking too much for them so they declined. So no Ross Bond, Matt Buck and team this year.

Grant Nisbett: Gone?

We have been told he hasn’t been allocated any NPC matches this year, although we haven’t been able to verify it, and he could also be commentating the All Blacks matches over the next month.

The Post: Gone

The newspaper and online website formerly known as the Dominion Post and a 2002 amalgam of the Evening Post (est. 1865) and the Dominion (est. 1907)  has long since abandoned local sports coverage. It seems its rejection of provincial sport is picking up pace. Anything below the Hurricanes (a regional team) and there is littl rugby coverage anymore, at least not from a local perspective?

Local Players in the Lions: Going.

The caveat here is of course that eight first choice Wellington players are in the All Blacks 44-player squad and one former All Black was mysteriously missing from the opening game line-up. But bringing in several new players from overseas with little to no comms about who these players even are and asking fans to embrace them is a tough ask for some fans.

NPC crowds in Wellington: Going

See above. Although, the horse bolted on this one a few seasons ago (we mark 2012 as the actual start of the decline, following the hangover and rugby fatigue from the previous year’s RWC), but they could still be playing at Porirua or Maidstone Parks.

+++++

A new rule has been quietly introduced whereby after a try has been scored only one player is allowed to stay back behind his posts to charge the kicker and the rest of the team make their way back to halfway before the kick has been taken. The purpose of this is to speed up the game and presumably stop time wasting by the team kicking off.

Is there a rule that you would change?  One they could revisit is goal line dropouts. Whether you agree with these in the first place (we have never particularly warmed to this one) it works on calm, still days. But not in the wind. Goal line dropouts into a moderate to strong wind or in a crosswind or even with a strong wind behind the kicker could be looked at.

+++++

The All Blacks open their tour of South Africa this coming Saturday morning at 8.00am NZT against the Stormers in Cape Town.

Photos website

View and bookmark the photos website at https://clubrugby.smugmug.com/2026

More photo galleries being added today/tonight.