Off the Ball for 1 May

Off the Ball is in association with Rob Law Max , Lovelocks Sports Bar  and Harcourts Johnsonville 

Looking at some of the news in briefs, milestones, happenings, statistics and observations from the weekend of rugby just gone and what’s coming up this coming week.

There’s been a chill in the air this Monday morning as the first sign that winter is approaching. But Wellington’s club rugby supporters can take a breather by the heater and the Premier players and support staff can take stock at the conclusion of the busiest stretch of games this season. Playing three games in a week is hard going, but the competition is back to Saturdays for the remainder of the season.

The summary after rounds 6, 7 and 8 being played in quick succession is that Northern United are top of the Swindale Shield table on 36 points, with the chasing pack of Ories (35), OBU (34) and HOBM (30) just behind. As always, the race for the ‘top eight’ to make the Jubilee Cup looks set to ramp up over the final five weeks of the first round.

At the top of the table, OBU host Norths for the inaugural Ken Douglas Trophy and for the Bill Brien Challenge Cup at Nairnville Park in this coming Saturday’s feature match.

The first round Women’s Fleurs Trophy will be decided this Saturday at the Polo Ground between Ories and Norths. Both go into this game with three bonus point wins in the bank. Ories are the defending first round champions, beating Norths 26-12 in a virtual final at the end of the first round last year.

+++++

College Rugby starts this coming weekend too, with grading games for all divisions getting underway on Saturday. The top four Wellington WelTec Premiership sides from 2016 play in the first round of the Tranzit Coachlines Festival in Masterton. St Pat’s Town play Palmerston North BHS, Wellington College meet Gisborne BHS, Rongotai College play Napier BHS and hosts Wairarapa College face raging hot favourites Hastings BHS.

As reported on Saturday, Hastings BHS beat Wellington College 50-10 on Saturday, while St Pat’s Town missed out to Auckland’s Dilworth College 18-32.

Rongotai College beat Tawa College 59-5 in another match. This Thursday night is the Rongotai College First XV quiz night at GasWorks in Miramar. Tickets are $10 per person for a 7.30pm. To purchase tickets email Peter West at peterwest156@gmail.com or call 027 266 2023.

St Mary’s College arrive home early this week fresh from annexing the Sanix World 7s tournament in Japan. More details on their victory to come.

+++++

No change at the top of the Best & Fairest standings after eight rounds, with Antony Fox (Norths) still the leader on 11 points, ahead of Ben Tupuola (Wainuiomata) on 8. Joyner Key (Upper Hutt Rams) has been joined by Parekura Lalaga (Norths) in third on 7. Fox was sinbinned early in the second half against Wainuiomata before leaving the field late in the match with injury.

+++++

A note about players switching positions in Premier rugby. Mike Ioapo was one of Northern United’s best on Saturday against Wainuiomata, mixing it with Ben Tupuola in the battle of the No. 8s. Ioapo played a full season at prop last year for Norths. Wainuiomata’s Teru Time started playing Premier rugby as a wing before moving in to centre where he played in the 2014 Jubilee Cup final. This year Time has moved into the forwards, making three consecutive starts at blindside flanker before coming off the bench to play flanker against Norths. Poneke lock Cole Stewart played centre and occasionally wing between 2011-15, before moving into Poneke’s engine room at the start of last year. With two consecutive Player of the Match performances against Ories and MSP, Stewart has made a successful transition. Probably our favourite example of a player moving from the forwards to the backs was Francis Seumanutafa who Club Rugby first saw playing lock, then at flanker, then on the wing for three seasons - scoring a try in the 2008 Jubilee Cup final 10-10 draw with MSP - and then back to flanker last season.

+++++

The New Zealand U20s opened their Oceania Cup U20s tournament account on Friday night with a 63-3 win over Fiji on the Gold Coast. Playing with a strong wind, NZ led 35-0 at halftime and then scored two quick tries early in the second half. It didn’t get any easier for Fiji when NZ emptied their bench, including bringing on Avalon hooker Asafo Aumua for the final quarter. Aumua made one damaging 20 metre run, swatting off and carrying several defenders in his wake.

New Zealand plays the Samoa U20s in their second match of the tournament tomorrow. Samoa lost 43-20 to Australia in their first match. MSP prop Ican Fepuleai is their captain and Petone wing Losi Filipo is their vice-captain.

+++++

On the academy and schools rugby environment that most if not all of the NZ U20s players have come through, Club Rugby has done four stories this year already with guys that rarely played for their First XVs at school level and only blossomed in their early 20s. Max Pearson (Upper Hutt Rams), Andy Ellis (Oriental-Rongotai), Jason Love (Wainuiomata) and Ben Huntley (Poneke) are all top players and loyal to their clubs and to the local competition. Who are some of the other players whose careers bloomed after they left the school gates? Conrad Smith, Alapati Leuia, Ambrose Curtis and Chris Brightwell (England 7s) are four to think of straightaway.

+++++

In the modern era where appearances at club level by even Super Rugby players - let alone All Blacks - are rare, it’s worthwhile to note when professional referees show up at grassroots level. Yesterday saw Ben O'Keeffe, who has refereed 6 Nations in Rome this year and whose last outing was at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, do just that and swap his international kits for a WRRA one and referee the clash at the Polo Ground between Ories and OBU.

+++++

While goal-kicking stats aren't kept, some idea can be found from the rate at which conversions are being kicked relative to the number of tries scored. Best in this regard are Poneke, HOBM, and Tawa, who are all above 72% along with Wellington, while at the other end of the range are Norths (40%) and Wainuiomata (39%) - notably Norths have only kicked 5 penalties as well - while Avalon have the worse mark with just 3 conversions to their 10 tries (both lows in the competition). While it hasn't proven to be a significant factor yet it could be over the coming weeks and into the Jubilee Cup.

+++++

In just his third Premier start, Folau Vea scored his first Premier hat-trick for Tawa on Saturday against Avalon. Unlike in some past years, hat-tricks haven’t been frequent so far this season. In 56 games there have been six of them: Fereti Soloa (HOBM v Avalon, round 4), Te Wehi Wright [4 tries] and Teegan Minkley (OBU v Pare-Plim, round 4), Nick Robertson (Poneke v Wellington, round 6), Mitchell Markov (Upper Hutt Rams v Avalon, round 7) and Folau Vea (Tawa v Avalon, round 8).

+++++

The lowest scoring affair in Wellington club rugby on Saturday was in the Thompson Memorial Cup First Grade competition where the Petone Brotherhood defeated Stokes Valley A 10-7 and the highest scoring match saw the Kapiti U85kg team beat MSP Green 100-0.

+++++

The Treeby clan travelled to Dunedin on Friday to watch Shaun playing for the Stormers v Highlanders. He got on early in the second half, with the Stormers already down by plenty. Not the result they were hoping for so they’re expecting an improvement against Hurricanes this Friday.

+++++

An observation on the college draws. It would be great for fans of both college and club rugby if WelTec Premiership matches this year were brought forward from their regular 2.30pm kick-offs to 12.00pm or 1.00pm kick-offs, or at least a ‘feature match’ each Saturday was played at the earlier time so nearby club rugby supporters can also catch some of this rugby before heading off to a Swindale Shield/Jubilee Cup match.

+++++

When the lights go out. Friday night’s Pro12 match between Irish side Leinster and Scottish team Glasgow (featuring Petone’s Nick Grigg in the midfield) was plunged in to darkness when the lights failed 90 seconds before fulltime. The match couldn’t be called off early as Leinster were leading 31-30. The lights were out for 20 minutes before power was restored and the match concluded with no change to the score.

+++++

After a week off, the Hurricanes are back in action this coming Friday night against the Stormers (possibly featuring Shaun Treeby, above) who have had a torrid time of it on their New Zealand tour to date, losing to the Crusaders (24-57) and to the Highlanders (14-57).  The Hurricanes didn’t play the Stormers last year, but in their meeting two years ago Beauden Barrett scored a spectacular length of the field try in a 25-20 win that saw the Hurricanes take control in the first half and the Stormers fight back to almost win.

This win snapped a four-game losing streak to the Stormers (playing as Western Province in the competition’s early days) and was just their seventh win in 18 matches against the Cape Town side.

Current Poneke Premier backs coach Tane Tu’ipulotu scored a clutch try at the end when the Hurricanes came back from 13-19 behind to beat the Stormers 23-19 in Cape Town in their 2006 clash. Tu’ipulotu had also scored a try against the Stormers in a 25-19 win two years previously.

Going into Friday’s match, the Hurricanes’ biggest win over the Stormers in terms of points scored was back in 1998 when they won 45-31 in Cape Town, their biggest win in terms of margin of victory was 34-11 (23 points) in Wellington in 2009 and their closest margin of victory was 12-9 in Palmerston North in 2005 when former Petone and OBU first five-eighth Jimmy Gopperth landed a monster penalty to win the game.

+++++

With college rugby starting up this coming weekend, the WRRA needs up to 60 new referees this season to cover all games. To help in any way contact David Walsh at david.walsh@wrfu.co.nz

Contributions to Off the Ball to: editor@clubrugby.co.nz