Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay win 2026 Hurricanes region U16s titles

Poverty Bay celebrate their Saracens Cup win on fulltime.

The Division A and Division B Hurricanes Youth Rugby Council’s U16 titles are both heading east this year.

The Hawke’s Bay Black team won the Division A Don Broughton Shield and Poverty Bay won the second tier Saracens Cup amongst the contest of the Heartland unions.

The tournament concluded at the tournament’s new permanent home of Whanganui Collegiate School in bright sunshine on Wednesday with the winners beating the defending champions in both finals.

Hawke’s Bay beat Wellington 27-10 to win Division A and Poverty Bay defeated Wairarapa-Bush 28-19.

In the 3 v 4 playoff matches, Manawatu accounted for the second Hawke’s Bay team 71-12, while the match between home team Whanganui and Horowhenua-Kapiti resulted in a thrilling 33-33 draw after Horowhenua-Kapiti had led 28-14 before a comeback was mounted.

The road to the Division A final was equally as tense, with the series of round-robin matches between winners Hawke’s Bay, Wellington and Manawatu all tight.

Wellington had held on to beat Manawatu 20-17 (pre-tournament match), then beaten Hawke’s Bay 25-24 on Monday in a comeback win, while Hawke’s Bay had done likewise to beat Manawatu 22-20 and then also holding on at the end as a 40-metre Manawatu penalty shaved the uprights.

In the final, the signs were there of an equally tight match with Hawke’s Bay holding a 7-5 lead late in the first half.

Wellington had jumped out of the gates and scored a forwards through prop Arlo Maxwell. The handy conversion was charged down, a sign of the Hawke’s Bay team’s commitment as the match developed.

Hawke’s Bay rallied and hit back with a try to captain and loosehead prop Genesis Taivale

Taivale, out of Hastings Boys’ High School, would later be named as the Player of the Tournament.

Wellington dominated territory and possession for long periods, but several of their own errors and Hawke’s Bay’s committed tackling consistently kept them out. Having lost a player to the sin-bin, Wellington conceded a scrum turnover and soon ran out of defenders as Hawke’s Bay scored in the corner to take a 12-5 lead into the break.

Wellington started the second half promising, halfback and first-five Max Crown and Ryder Caine both went close. Hawke’s Bay held on well.

The Junior Magpies then scored a decisive try after a turnover on halfway, with centre Ritchie Neemla  running away and scoring to put them up 17-5.

Wellington resumed their attacking momentum and weight of numbers saw Mika Heather scoring in the corner to close the score to 17-10.

Hawke’s Bay made a rare trip up into the Wellington 22, earned a penalty and kicked the three points to go ahead 20-10.

It was then game over with a  few minutes to play with a booming break up the far side by captain and prop Genesis Taivale led to more rampant attack and a cross kick out to the right wing for the try to put them up 27-10.

In winning this, Hawke’s Bay sides have annexed all three Division A HYRC male titles this year, following their U18s and U20s tournament wins.

As well as the Player of the Tournament (all these we have on record listed below), a tournament team was selected and can be seen at:

https://www.hyrc.org.nz/news/2026-hurricanes-under-16-boys-tournament-team-named.html

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Past Division A Winners and tournament MVPS

Our records on this website go back to 2012 – see below.

Division A winners since 2012:

2012: Wellington
2013: Wellington
2014: Hawke’s Bay
2015: Wellington
2016: Wellington
2017: Wellington
2018: Hawke’s Bay
2019: Wellington
2020: Tournament not played owing to COVID
2021: Hawke’s Bay
2022: Manawatu
2023: Wellington Gold
2024: Hawke’s Bay
2025: Wellington
2026: Hawke’s Bay

The Players of the 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 Sooalo, (Wellington RFU)
2018: Treyah Kingi-Taukomo, (Hawke’s 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)
2025: Fletcher Cooper (Wellington)
2026: Genesis Taivale (Hawke’s Bay)