Off the Ball for 3 September

Jerry Collins Stadium on the first day of spring on Saturday. 

Off the Ball is in association with Rob Law Max, Lovelocks Sports Bar,  Motor Doctors and Sarah Kilner Real Estate 

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 week.

The representative rugby ramps up a notch this coming Saturday with three matches at Porirua Park.

At 1.00pm, the Wellington Pride take on Canterbury in the second round of the Women’s NPC Farah Palmer Cup.

The Pride are coming off a 22-25 loss to Hawke’s Bay, while Canterbury accounted for Bay of Plenty 55-5 this past weekend. This is a cross-over match between last year’s Premiership winners Canterbury and Championship contenders Wellington. The home side will be hoping to take competition points from this fixture. Like their men’s sides, Canterbury are no better than anyone else, they just like winning more.

Next up on Jerry Collins Stadium, the ground should shake when the Wellington Samoans and the Wellington Maori clash in their annual fixture at 2.45pm in a Hurricanes Development Shield match. Resuming from their bye, the Centurions Development team plays the Hawke’s Bay Saracens in Napier on McLean Park in a NPC curtain-raiser game.

The Wellington Samoans U18s take on the Wairarapa Bush U18s in their opening Hurricanes U18 tournament match on Porirua Park 2 at 2.45pm. Elsewhere, the Wellington Community U18s play Poverty Bay in Gisborne in their first match of this tournament.

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The Wellington U16 Development side takes on the NZIS team at Te Whaea at 6.30pm on Friday night. The Wellington U16As play the Petone Barbarians at the Bernie Wood Artificial on Saturday at 1.30pm.

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There are also college tournaments being played this week.

The inaugural Wellington U14 Festival runs from next Thursday-Saturday at Te Whaea and Wellington College, involving Wellington College, St Pat’s Town and Silverstream, Rongotai and St Bernard’s Colleges and visitors Feilding High School.

The Hurricanes U15 Boys tournament runs from next Wednesday-Saturday, based at St Pat’s Silverstream involving seven local and nine visiting schools from around the country.

Mana College join six teams from around the Hurricanes region in Levin next Monday and Tuesday in the Hurricanes U15 girls tournament.

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The Wellington U13 reps start their representative programme with a match against the Marlborough U14s in Blenheim.

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Also around the next corner is the national ‘Top 4’ schools tournament in Palmerston North on Friday and Sunday. No Wellington schools are involved this year. The Hurricanes schools represented are Napier Boys’ High School (boys), Feilding High School (co-ed) and Manukura (girls).

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On Sunday the Wellington U19s take on the Taranaki U19s in day one of the U19 tournament. Details and draw to be confirmed.

The Wellington U19s recently beat the Hawke’s Bay, Hurricanes Heartland and Manawatu teams by a combined score of 177-52. The final points table from the just completed Central Region Shield tournament was: Wellington 15, Hawke’s Bay 10, Hurricanes Heartland 6, Manawatu 0.

Hawke’s Bay will also play in the top 8 Graham Mourie Cup section, while Manawatu will contest the bottom 8 Sir Michael Jones Trophy.

Marist St Pat’s lock Naitoa ah Kuoi was the Player of the Tournament, despite not playing on Saturday. He also won the Most Meritorious Under-21 Player award at the MSP awards on Friday night.

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Fullback Andrew Wells was named Sportsman of the Year following another consistent season where he started all 19 Premier games He is the first back to win MSP’s top award for four seasons when Isaiah Petelo won in 2014.

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A good win for the Wellington Maori Development team on Saturday in the second round of the RDO Cup. They beat the Wairarapa Bush Bs 56-36, scoring 10 tries. This follows their first-up 32-49 loss to Wanganui B. This coming Saturday they host the Horowhenua-Kapiti Bs at the Hutt Recreation Ground.

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The Chiefs Country Cup that has been introduced this season by the four Chiefs regions – Bay of Plenty, Counties Manukau, Taranaki and Waikato - is a great initiative and one that could be replicated in the Hurricanes region. The Chiefs Country Cup is a challenge cup (home and away) between the four Chiefs Men’s and Women’s NPC teams. It appears that there are separate cups for each competition, but another way to do it would be to have one cup on the line for both competitions together and this could be extended to other rep teams such as the U19s or Development teams. It could therefore change hands twice in the same day or twice or more in the same weekend if multiple teams are playing.

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Another try to Fereti Soloa on Saturday for the Wellington Samoans, making it seven tries in his past three matches.

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Poor form by Westpac Stadium officials on Friday night, making a group of members wait outside for up to half an hour before the gates opened. Entry has traditionally been 6.00pm for 7.35pm games and these members, some of whom can trace their rugby watching back to the western bank days at Athletic Park, have been members since opening night in 2000 when Jonah Lomu scored two tries against the Sharks. They arrived early as usual, but either no one told them that the opening hours have been pushed back to 6.30pm or it was communicated badly. Maybe they are trying to drive the last of the fans away?

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Reminds an Off the Ball correspondent of the time a few years ago when they had to jump the fence to exit the locked up stadium after working in the media box for an hour or so post game on a rainy Friday night. 

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Only one of the six home teams (South Canterbury 40-11 over Poverty Bay) in this past weekend’s Heartland Championship won their second round game. Of the two lower North Island teams, former Tawa midfielder Timoci Seruwalu helped Horowhenua-Kapiti to their 46-8 win over East Coast, while HOBM first five-eighth Glen Walters kicked 10 points in Wairarapa-Bush’s 32-44 loss to Thames Valley.

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The Wellington Lions now enter busy stretch, playing two matches in one round. Their next match is this coming Wednesday night against Waikato in Hamilton. This game pits Wellington Lions coach Chris Gibbes against Waikato coach Jonno Gibbes. On paper, the Lions should be far too good for Waikato. On Sunday afternoon, they host North Harbour who will be refreshed after missing out to Tasman yesterday afternoon.

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The Lions led Southland 40-0 at halftime on Friday night. It got us thinking What their biggest halftime leads have been in NPC rugby?

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Anyone from Wellington watching the Bay of Plenty versus Canterbury match on Saturday afternoon at Mt Maunganui might have noticed the ground atmosphere. It helped considerably that it was a pleasant, sunny afternoon, but surely NPC rugby at boutique venues where the crowd is up close and there’s lots going on is preferable to it being played at vast empty stadiums? The women’s game was a curtain-raiser as well. Sort of – not sure what a 90-minute break between games does for the continuity of double-headers.

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The opening weekend of the English Premiership, and a number of New Zealanders involved.

Bristol toppled neighbours and defending champions Bath 17-10 in front a record crowd and Northern United centre Alapati Leiua scored the winning try.

Upper Hutt Rams fullback Jason Woodward helped Gloucester to a 16-7 win over Director of Rugby Chris Boyd’s Northampton Saints.

Wasps pipped the Worcester Warriors 21-20, but neither Brad Shields or Ambrose Curtis were playing.

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International rugby resumes this coming weekend, with the All Blacks hosting Argentina in Nelson and the Wallabies hosting the Springboks in Brisbane.

Should we subsidise the All Blacks? Read more here