Wellington’s champion club teams: the top 5

The Wellington region will come to a standstill on Good Friday, 25 March, when the opening round of the 2016 Swindale Shield kicks off and the 130th season of Wellington club rugby gets underway.

Below are summaries of five of the best Wellington club rugby winners of the past and what made them special.

Petone 1907

Season record:

Played 12.Won 9.Lost 1.Drew 2.Points for 171. Points against 49

Season summary:

1907 was a triumph for the entire Petone club, not just its top team. Five Petone teams entered into the Wellington competition and all five finished clear winners of their respective championships. In all, these teams played 57 games and won 51, lost three and drew three of them, scoring a combined 921 points and conceding only 123.

In celebration of the club’s achievements, all 96 players involved in the five champion sides were awarded a medal by the Petone Citizen’s Committee.

The Senior A side were champions for the fourth straight year and achieved success through adversity. The title was won by beating a strong Poneke side that included returning All Blacks Frank Mitchinson and Billy Wallace in their XV. Petone had started the year strongly before getting the wobbles mid-season and losing to Melrose and drawing with Athletic in successive weeks.

The players:

Petone actually beat Poneke in the final game of the season without six leading players who had just joined up with the “All Golds” Rugby League team that toured England and Australia.

The Petone group that included the team’s captain Hercules “Bumper” Wright and 1905 All Blacks Tom Cross and Duncan McGregor, had recently set sail and resentment ran high in Wellington at the time. The Evening Post on 17 August 1907 had its say. “It simply means a few months waiting now to see how the money-seekers shape...for the purity of the sport it is to be hoped that the tour is a failure financially, for that will mean the end of professionalism as far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned.”

Poneke 1919

Season record:

Played 15.Won 10.Drew 4.Lost 1.Points for 234. Points against 60

Season summary:

The end of World War One ushered in a brief golden age for Wellington rugby. After a break of five years, Wellington successfully defended the Ranfurly Shield five times in 1919 and took it on tour for the first time, defending it against Canterbury home (winning 21-8) and away (23-9) in the space of a few weeks.

1919 was also a top year for the Poneke FC, winning the Senior championship for the second straight year. The nature of Poneke’s win was also one of the more thrilling up to then and since. They stormed through the pack with a draw and then a run of five straight victories to finish a point ahead of second placed Athletic.

The defining club match of the 1919 season was on 16 August when Poneke toppled Athletic 14-3 in front of a huge crowd. The following week the Red and Blacks beat Selwyn - who played in a similar green and black strip to today’s Wainuiomata - 12-3; while simultaneously Athletic lost to Petone 5-8. There was then a five-week break in the club competition whilst the bulk of the representative season was played but Poneke returned at the end of September to trounce Petone 32-8 and take the spoils.

The players:

Key players in this Poneke team included outside backs Beethoven Algar and Snowy Morris - who had scored five tries in their season opening 51-0 win over Oriental - the Tilyard brothers, Fred, Jim (both All Blacks) and Charlie, and the Shaw brothers, Jack and Sydney.

University 1952

Season record:

Played 15. Won 13. Lost 2. Points for 240. Points against 90

Season summary:

In a golden age for club rugby, the University side of the 1950s was one of the all-time great sides in New Zealand, let alone Wellington. Starting in 1952, University won outright or shared the Jubilee Cup four times throughout the 1950s, including being the first team since Petone in 1922-24 to win a three-peat of titles when they were top dog in 1952-54.

In the days of often turgid 10-man rugby, University’s exciting and positive style of play in this era wouldn’t be out of place today. This team lit up Athletic Park, where they played most of their games, and the crowds came to watch them in their thousands.

With mobile forwards and slashing backs, University made the opposition sit up and take notice when they demolished defending champions Poneke 37-0 in their season opener. There were a couple of setbacks in the following weeks before they took out the Jubilee Cup championship with two rounds to spare.

The team’s record was 50 tries scored and 15 tries conceded. Superstar left wing Ron Jarden was the competition’s leading points scorer with 14 tries and 96 points. 

The players:

The 1952 University side featured four current or soon-to-be All Blacks; Jarden, Bill Clark, Jim Fitzgerald and Brian Fitzpatrick.

The head coach was Ian Uttley, a former New Zealand Universities and Otago first five-eighth. Nine players went on to play for Wellington in 1952: Jarden, Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick, Clark, Larry Savage, Jack Smith, Barry Hutchinson, Ivan Stuart and Peter Osborne.

Petone 1973

Season record:

Played 18.Won 18. Points for: 620. Points against 106.

Season summary:

The Petone team from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s is regarded as the greatest club side in Wellington’s history, and as one of the most dominant ever in New Zealand. This team won five consecutive Jubilee Cups from 1967-71 and again in 1973, 1974 and 1976, a total of eight wins in 10 years.

These Ian Upston-coached and Ken Gray/Andy Leslie-captained teams also had a mortgage on the Swindale Shield in this period, from its resurrection in 1969.After relinquishing their grip on the Jubilee Cup to Athletic and Wellington sharing the title in 1972, Petone came back to win the Shield-Cup double in 1973 with an unbeaten season - scoring over 600 points with an average winning score of 35-8 in an era of 4-point tries. 

Dominating the first round, they scored 463 points and conceded 90 points in 13 games.They enjoyed comfortable wins over rivals Poneke (43-10) and MSP (35-0), while their closest wins were over Naenae Old Boys (18-15), and Hutt Old Boys for the McBain Shield (23-7). In five second round games, Petone scored 157 points and conceded just 16, with notable victories over MSP again (20-7) and runners-up Wellington (22-0).

The players:

Four Petone players were in the Wellington team that defeated England 25-16 later in the season. First five-eighth John Dougan (first selected in 1972 and nephew of 1950’s Jubilee Cup winner Jackie Dougan), No. 8 Andy Leslie (1974, as captain) and halfback Ian Stevens (1972) were all Petone All Blacks in the early 1970s. Wing Vern Winiata was a try scoring machine, scoring 11 tries in the first nine games of 1973. Coach Upston went on to mentor the Wellington side that won the NPC for the first time in 1978 and won the Ranfurly Shield - NPC double in 1981.

Marist St Pat’s 1979

Season record:

Played 20. Won 20. Points for 391. Points against 123

Season summary:

One of the most dominant sides to win a Wellington club rugby championship, Marist St. Pat’s had won its first Swindale Shield in 1977 and its first Jubilee Cup in 1978, which it shared with the Wellington Axemen. MSP went one better in the WRFU’s centenary year in 1979, winning the Jubilee Cup outright for the first time.

After making a shaky start in the season opener against Onslow, winning narrowly 13-10, MSP went on to win all 13 matches in the Swindale Shield scoring 246 points and conceding 88. They beat rivals Petone 24-6 on Anzac Day and didn’t look back. In the Jubilee Cup, MSP enjoyed wins over University (31-0), Athletic (21-19, after trailing 9-10 with 15 minutes to play), Hutt Valley Marist (14-0), Poneke (13-3), Onslow (34-0), Wellington (16-7) and then Petone (16-6) in the final with flanker Standish scoring the winning try. In going undefeated MSP scored 52 tries throughout the season.

The players:

Forwards Kevin Horan, John Fleming, Paul Quinn, John Wootton and Maurice Standish all the made Wellington’s NPC team in 1979 - MSP also played glittering rugby through their backs. First five-eighth Tu Wylie made the All Blacks the following year. Former Wellington halfback Brian Coulter was the coach. The following year, 1980, saw MSP pick up where they left off, winning every match en route to the final. But after 41 consecutive wins they were lowered by Petone, with a contentious moment being the non-award of a try to wing Murray Tocker under a pool of water early in the match.

Northern United 2010

Season record:

Played 20. Won 17. Lost 1. Drew 2. Points for 788. Points against 328

Season summary:

The sleeping giant of Wellington club rugby awoke in the opening decade of this century. Following the amalgamation of the Porirua and Titahi Bay clubs in 1990, it took 13 seasons for the new Northern United club to win its first major title when it won the Swindale Shield in 2003. Between then and 2011 they won or shared nine major titles, including the Jubilee Cup in 2004, 2006, 2008 (shared with MSP) and 2010.

Statistically, 2010 was their best season, and under the coaching of Frank Rees they were quite simply a juggernaut. They scored 546 points in winning the Swindale Shield with three games in hand and amassed 53 competition points out of a possible 55, with only Petone and Ories denying them four-try bonus points. Upper Hutt (82-16), Wests (72-6), and Johnsonville (59-10) were swept aside.

They weren’t so dominant in the Jubilee Cup round-robin, losing to Poneke 15-17 on a Kilbirnie Park mud-pie and drawing with both HOBM and, surprisingly, Upper Hutt; but hit top-gear again when it mattered beating HOBM 38-13 in the semi-final and Poneke 24-5 in what was the last final played at Westpac Stadium.

The players:

When at full strength, they ranked as one of the strongest amateur teams running around in world rugby. Personnel included Jerry Collins, Tamati and Jacob Ellison, John Schwalger, Alapati Leiua, Anthony Perenise, Serge Lilo, Robbie Fruean, Faifili Levave, Api Naikatini, Buxton Popoalii, James So'oialo, David and Tomasi Palu, Sinoti Sinoti and in 2010 a schoolboy star in 17 year-old TJ Perenara. These players, together with several dynamic back-ups, played for Norths on a regular basis. Porirua Park became a fortress. Two players, fullback Popoalii with 18 tries and wing So’oialo with 206 points, both broke records in 2010.

This article is a summary of a series of articles published on this website two years ago.

Photo Credit: Winners Senior A Championship (Jubilee Cup), Victoria University College Rugby Football Club, 1952. Crown Studios Ltd :Negatives and prints. Ref: 1/1-038874-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23098315