All is Wells at MSP ahead of championship round of club rugby

Above: Andrew Wells dots down a try against Northern United a fortnight ago, cementing MSP's place in the top 8 for the second half of the season starting next weekend. Photo by Andy McArthur.

Andrew Wells’ first club rugby season out of school was one to savour, winning the Jubilee Cup with Marist St Pat’s.

“I played every minute of every game that season for the MSP Premiers, so it was a memorable year,” Wells told Club Rugby ahead of tomorrow’s big clash between St Pat’s Town and his old Wellington College First XV.

MSP went on and beat Oriental-Rongotai 14-8 in the 2012 final, which Wells also unsurprisingly nominates as his Wellington club rugby favourite moment thus far. “I was quite lucky coming out of school and joining the team, that had quite a few of the experienced guys returning as well and that was an awesome season.”

Five years on and he’d like nothing more than to repeat that success, after two consecutive close losses for MSP in the final to Old Boys University and Tawa.

MSP have achieved the first tick in the box by qualifying for the Jubilee Cup, beating Paremata-Plimmerton 65-13 on Saturday and No. 8 Matt Peni scoring four tries. “He’s a big guy and he runs hard with the ball and is pretty hard to stop when he gets going,” ventured Wells.” He scored those tries on Saturday pretty much all by himself.”

The Swindale Shield round hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the Red Machine after convincingly beating Tawa 31-13 in their season opener on Gala Day in Upper Hutt.

“We dropped all three of those games that were played around ANZAC Day, and they were all within a few points. We were close to clicking but we weren’t quite there.

“We seem to be tracking okay again now and hopefully we’ll continue into the second round.”

MSP have earned a bonus point in every game they've played this season meaning in every game they've either won with four tries or lost by less than seven, so a mixture of big wins and close losses.

Heading in to this weekend’s final round match against the Wellington Axemen, which is also the club’s Past Players and Supporters Day, MSP have won seven and lost five. They’re second equal on the team try scoring list alongside Norths with 60 tries, just behind likely first round winners OBU on 63.

Wells himself has started at fullback in the last nine consecutive matches. He has scored six tries since ANZAC Day and 83 points all up including 25 in MSP’s 50-14 win over Norths a fortnight ago.

He’s played variously at halfback, first five-eighth, wing and fullback throughout his career to date. “I don’t mind playing on the wing as well but fullback is my favourite position.”

He’s enjoying playing alongside the likes of Mike Buckley too. “He’s scored some pretty amazing tries and he seems to be able to do it regularly so he’s good to play with.”

Six months ago, things weren’t all rosy for Wells, in the south of France nursing a knee injury.

“I did my knee five minutes into the second game of the season last October.

“I was out for about four months, and then the club got into financial difficulties and started battling so I asked for a release earlier this year to come back here and start playing for Wellington.”

The knee is good now, which is showing in his current good form for MSP. As well as training and playing he’s picked up his business studies at Massey University that he had put on hold in 2015.

It was about two years ago when he left for France, joining FC Auch Gers in the Pro D2 competition.

“I enjoyed my time over there, about an hour out of Toulouse in the south of France. It’s a small town and all the people were really nice and welcoming.”

“The rugby was really different; my club played a really forward orientated game so I ended up chasing a lot of kicks and making a lot of tackles, mostly playing on the wing. I enjoy being back and playing the style of rugby we play in New Zealand.”

The match tomorrow on Evans Bay Park is between the St Pat’s Town and Wellington College First XVs for the Centennial Shield.

Wells is a former Wellington College player and captain. “I’ll probably head down and have a look at it; I always like going to see my own school play so it should be good.”

He spent three years in the Wellington College First XV. “I have good memories of playing for my school team; those mid-week Traditional games are always the big games of the season, the ones we most enjoyed playing.”

A match against St Pat’s Town he played in stands out as a highlight. “In 2010 we played against St Pat’s Town at home and it was really muddy. That was when they had Matt Proctor and Eric Sione and others and we beat them by a point.”

Tomorrow’s game kicks off at 1.15pm (Updated - previously reported as 1.30pm).