Sideline Conversions 2 November (some rugby news to start the new week)

Georgia Daals on the burst for Petone against Poneke in their WRFU women’s 7s tournament on Saturday. Photo: Andy McArthur.

The first of five scheduled Saturdays of sevens was held at Rugby League Park on Saturday with the first of the two WRFU women’s tournaments.

The Petone Ponies have the upper hand heading into this coming Saturday’s second tournament, with a group of teams not far off the pace. Petone beat OBU 34-5 in the final, Poneke beat Ories 35-0 in the 3 v 4 match and the Wellington Axemen and Avalon drew 20-20 in the 5 v 6 game. We await details of leg two where the Eleanor Roosevelt Cup will be presented.

A reminder that following the second women’s tournament on 7 November, there is the Hurricanes Schools 7s in Feilding on 14 November and the two WRFU men’s tournaments on 21 and 28 November.

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Soody makes the newspaper: https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/361108109/real-grassroots-election-vote-soody-his-love-rugby-and-his-club

Vote here: https://www.farmlands.co.nz/rural-rugby-legends-vote#votenow 

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The annual Club Rugby Awards article is going to be published here this week, likely on Wednesday. Look out for that. Like a lot of these articles, including this one, this is a collaborative story so if you have any favourite matches, moments and incidents or something else from 2026 you would like to contribute please send it through for inclusion.

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On the subject of awards, the annual College Sport Wellington SPOTYS are coming up on Sunday at Porirua’s Te Rauparaha Arena. Who will be the 2026 Male and Female Rugby Player of the Year? Are any in line to win the supreme award?

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The Heartland XV beat Manumā Samoa 64-28 (36-0 at halftime) in the first match of two for them at Timaru this weekend. The second match is at the end of this week.

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The All Blacks left late last week for their northern tour. How about this stat:

Kyle Preston has started one of 18 first class games in 2026. He averages 20 minutes per appearance across his 363 minutes on the field this season.

We are sure he has been training hard all year, but as a fan would you want to be watching him play more?

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The Hurricanes named their 2027 Super Rugby squad on Wednesday, and it really is the ‘Strangercanes’ for Wellington supporters next year.

Just 11 of 38 players in the main squad are Wellington players, these players being: Siale Lauaki (Norths), Xavier Numia (Ories), Asafo Aumua (Avalon), Caleb Delany (OBU), Hugo Plummer (Tawa), Du ‘Plessis Kirifi (Norths), Peter Lakai (Petone), Brad Shields (Petone), Ruben Love (Wainuiomata), Billy Proctor (Marist St Pat’s), Callum Harkin (OBU).

The Hurricanes have named an additional 11 players in the Wider Training Group squad and just two of these are Wellington Lions, these being Matolu Petaia (Tawa) and Johnny Falloon (OBU).

Of 49 players in the main and WTG Hurricanes squads for 2027, just 13 are current Wellington players.

Kyle Preston (OBU – Crusaders) brings the Wellington total nationwide to 14.

Wellington had an awful NPC season, but who would be the unlucky players? Dominic Ropeti (Ories) could be one.

Given the Hurricanes play six of seven games in Wellington (the other one has been confirmed as being versus the Chiefs in Napier) and have positioned themselves as a Wellington team, fans are going to have to become acquainted with a whole new set of players, some of whom most will have barely heard of. Players like Tāmiro Armstrong, Alefosio Aho, Tito Tuipulotu and Dylan Eti.

What would we know though, they are defending champions and crushed it this year! As always, we are coming at this from a supporters and fans perspective, so if they start losing and the tide goes out then the yellow seats army could come out in force in home games at Wellington.

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NZRU kicks the ball can down the road

This brings us on to the other release of interest from the NZRU late last week.

This was announcing the structure going forward for the landscape of the domestic competitions.

No change for next season, so the status quo with everything.

Then from 2028 onward they will start rearranging the deckchairs. The plan is to take the five Super Rugby base city NPC provinces and incorporate these into their Super Rugby franchises, to shave $20 million per year.

Canterbury probably doesn’t need this, they still love it down there and their new stadium will keep this going for a few more seasons at least and Otago have had a NPC revival. But the logic for doing this in Waikato and particularly Auckland and Wellington could be seen as being well founded. But how this will actually look wasn’t explained in the media release which was heavy on self platitudes and quotes written by media people on behalf of those quoted and light on details and specifics.

Will the Hurricanes buy and run the Wellington Lions? Will the Lions join the Heartland Championship, and the Hurricanes become the sole team in town going forward?

Five reviews since 2011 have reached the conclusion that NZR’s cost pressure is “structural” driven by loss-making competitions, growing investment in the women’s game, the rising cost of the high-performance environments, and intensifying global competition and cost for players.

While the All Blacks are projected to make a net result of $38 million for 2026 – which includes broadcast, direct commercial and match day revenue less team, travel, player coach and management costs – the rest of the teams run at a loss. The Black Ferns top the list of teams that cost the most to operate at a deficit of $11 million. They are followed by the All Blacks Sevens and Black Ferns Sevens at a loss of around $2.5 million each. Where is the women’s review?

Finally, how will this affect community rugby? Will club rugby just be squeezed at the margins and how much more can they get out of it before pesky club rugby goes away?

This isn’t intended to be a doom and gloom take, so one positive we heard from Rob Nicol of the Rugby Players’ Association was that there could be more scope for expanded provincial union academies and more players staying in the game after school with a shot at professional pathways.

Although the Rugby Players’ Association could be seen as being part of the problem, from the Silver Lake deal through to this, with the wage bill sucking up more and more even if the crowds at games aren’t there to support it.

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While New Zealand essentially refuses to change its professional structure, Wales‘ financial crisis has deepened dramatically after the Welsh Rugby Union revealed losses of £18m for the year to June 2026 – more than double the £7.2m deficit recorded 12 months earlier. Wales is planning to reduce its professional teams from four to three.

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A funny incident with this falcon from the assistant referee on Saturday. We are sure the young guy won’t mind this being published having met him last Monday at the Condor 7s and he was a good guy with a bright future if he sticks at it.

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Keiana Roffey (Poneke) and Keira Su’a-Smith (Petone) both played in the New Zealand Women’s U21 team that played Australia Next Gen at CHCH this Saturday. The NZ U21 team won comfortably but the match report failed to tell us what the score was so that goes unreported.

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In other sports watch, have the Wellington Firebirds caught the Wellington Lions disease? They are only two games into a long season, but in their first two outings in the domestic 50-over competition  they have suffered comprehensive losses to Otago and Canterbury. Will the Central Pulse be playing next year? If not, there could be a few players that could play rugby instead. Current St Mary’s netball captain Fo’i Lemana was good for the St Mary’s 7s team last Monday and there are other Pulse players who have been good rugby players in the past such as Ana Puleiata who played for the OBU 7s team on Saturday.

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Manukura’s Kaipo Olsen-Baker joins fellow Black Ferns Monique Hirovanaa (2002), Dame Farah Palmer (2005), Carla Hohepa (2010), Kendra Cocksedge (2015), Portia Woodman-Wickman (2017) and Ruahei Demant (2022) to win World Rugby Player of the Year.

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Peter Lakai is the best openside flanker in the world, according to former All Blacks winger Jeff Wilson, who has likened the back-rower to the legendary Sir Michael Jones.

The 23-year-old loose forward played a central role in the Hurricanes’ 2026 Super Rugby Pacific title-winning campaign and has taken much of that form into the black jersey.

Read more HERE 

Above: Peter Lakai scoring for Wellington in an U19s clash five years ago, in October 2021.

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This column is almost over for 2026 but hopes to return in the New Year.

It is a collaborative effort – so if you have news and information to share and post or want to help on an ongoing basis please send through.

Club Rugby thanks everyone that reads and supports our content and our sponsors and supporters as we close in (only a few thousand short of this milestone as at the end of October) on the statistical milestone of 1,000,000 reads on our website since the start of the 2025.

We are working on a couple of ideas for fresh content packages next year. After doing this for a while now, we recognise that content is king, so these are based around some meaty regular stories for 2027.

If you want to be part of these from a support partner or investor point of view please get in touch and we can reveal more!