Swindale Shield by the numbers

The curtain has closed on the first round Swindale Shield competition, with the top eight finishing sides now progressing to the coveted Jubilee Cup and the bottom six teams joined by the leading two qualifiers from the Premier Reserve competition to play in the Hardham Cup.

This time last year the Old Boys University Goats were one of seven teams hoping to knock then defending Jubilee Cup champions Hutt Old Boys Marist off their perch. Now the hunter is the hunted, with OBU in possession of both the Jubilee Cup and the first round Swindale Shield.

OBU’s Swindale Shield win was the club’s maiden first round Premier title since it was first played for in the modern era in 1969. OBU became the fourth club in as many years to win it, after Tawa in 2013, MSP in 2014 and HOBM in 2015. OBU are the 13th club to have their name inscribed on it.

Petone are in the Hardham Cup for the first time since 1996.

HOBM have gone from first round Swindale Shield winners one year, to missing out on the top eight the following year; just as they did with their previous Swindale triumph in 1997. However unlike then there isn’t the spectre of dropping out of Premier entirely.

Poneke are back in the Jubilee Cup after missing out and playing in the Hardham Cup in 2014 and 2015.

MSP ended the first round as Bill Brien Challenge Cup holders, and will defend it next in their first home game of the Jubilee Cup round.

In 13 matches, the OBU Goats scored 447 points and conceded 219, but the best for and against record went to second placed Oriental-Rongotai who scored 504 points and let in 214.Ories scored 50 points or more in a match on five occasions (and reached the 40s twice more).

Ories scored the most tries in the first round with 68, ahead of OBU with 67, Tawa 61, Wellington 57 and MSP 55.

At the other end of the table, winless Johnsonville conceded exactly 800 points and scored 132. Johnsonville conceded 61 points per game, fewer than the 81 points per game that Rimutaka conceded in 2013.

Overall, a cumulative total of 4,809 points were scored in the 91 games of this year's Swindale Shield, at an average of 53.7 points per game.

The number of teams and games in the first round has increased over the past two years. Last year in the Swindale Shield there were 77 games and in previous years 66, but as a comparison of average points per scored over the previous five years, this is down on last year’s average of 54.5 points per game, with 2014 seeing 48.4, 2013 59.9, 2012 45.8 and 2011 47.5.

There were a total of 656 tries scored in this year’s Swindale Shield, at an average of 7.2 tries per match. Last year there were 553 tries scored in 14 fewer games, at an average of 7.1 tries per match.

The rounds with the most tries scored were rounds eight and nine with 62 tries scored in both these weeks. Unsurprisingly, the rounds with the fewest tries were the two night rounds. There 38 tries scored in the second set of night games in round seven, up from just 32 in the first in round three.

The most tries in an individual match was 16, when Wellington beat Johnsonville 90-12 in round 4 and there was one tryless match, when Petone beat Ories 6-3 in round 12.

There were 17 matches out of 91 in which the winning team scored 50 or more points. Johnsonville were on the receiving end of the three highest tallies; conceding 90 against Wellington, 86 against Ories, and 80 against Tawa.

By aggregate the three lowest scoring games were Petone’s 6-3 win over Ories, Avalon’s 8-6 victory over Petone and Tawa’s 10-9 edging of Poneke.

The three highest losing scores were HOBM’s 38-45 defeat to OBU, Wainuiomata’s 37-48 loss to Ories and Johnsonville’s 37-44 defeat to Petone.

There were two draws in this year’s Swindale Shield. Avalon and Ories drew 11-11 in round one and HOBM and the Upper Hutt Rams finished all square at 24-24 in round 11.

There were six matches that were decided by just one point, with Poneke on the losing end of three of them. The Kilbirnie side suffered back-to-back losses by that margin to Ories (19-20) and Tawa (9-10) before Saturday's one to MSP (22-23); while OBU managed to get away with two wins by that barest of margins over Ories (25-24) and Tawa (34-33), while the other was Norths 24-23 edging of the Upper Hutt Rams.

Individually, Wellington’s Paddy Hughes was the top try-scorer with 13 tries. Hughes started on the wing in 11 games, came off the bench in one more and missed one. He scored four braces, including one each in the first three matches of the year with his fourth this past Saturday.

Tuga Mativa (Ories) and Wes Goosen (OBU) scored the joint second most tries with 11 each, while James O’Reilly (HOBM) and Teariki Ben Nicholas (OBU) both scored seven tries, the most by a forward.

The top points scorer in the first round was the Upper Hutt Rams’ Joyner Key. His 127 points were more than HOBM’s Brandyn Laursen’s 126 and Poneke’s Pakai Turia’s 110.

There were 14 individual hat-tricks scored in the first round Swindale Shield, with OBU No. 8 Ben Nicholas’s four tries against the Wellington Axemen at Westpac Stadium in round 6 the most in a game so far this season.

There were 72 instances of a player scoring two tries in one match in this year’s Swindale Shield, with 13 braces alone in the 13th round just played.

There were 15 instances of a player scoring 20 or more points in one match. The leading two hauls were James Proctor scoring 27 points for Ories against Wellington in round 9 and Perry Hayman posting 26 points for Norths against Johnsonville in round 5.

Marist St Pat’s won the first round Premier Reserve competition by 11 points to second placed Petone on 49. MSP won 12 and lost 1, scoring 568 points and conceding 191.

Petone’s second XV are ineligible to play in the Premier 2 Hardham Cup, owing to the fortunes of their top side, so MSP will be joined by third placed OBU in that series starting this coming Saturday.

The first round Women’s series saw two new teams introduced and an expansion to 10 clubs, and with it came several lopsided scores throughout the scheduled 45-match Fleurs Trophy competition. Consequently there was plenty of hot individual scoring in the women’s first round. 

There were 14 instances of a player scoring four or more tries in a match. Northern United’s Helen Collins led the way by scoring 6 tries against the Upper Hutt Rams. Other players to score 5 tries in a match were Hutt Old Boys Marist’s Monica Tagoai, Avalon’s Ruby Finau, Poneke’s Loretta Maiava, and Wainuiomata’s Chanelle Skipper.

There were seven instances of a player scoring 35 or more points in a game. Ories’ Elizabeth Goulden led the way with 60 points against the Upper Hutt Rams, surpassing the known record 52 point haul scored in the men’s grade in 2013 by HOBM’s Brandyn Laursen.

Other big individual hauls came from Avalon’s Ruby Finau who scored 44 points against Johnsonville-Tawa and 43 points the following week against the Upper Hutt Rams, HOBM’s Monica Tagoai who scored 39 points against the Upper Hutt Rams, OBU’s Charlotte Chivers who scored 37 points against Johnsonville-Tawa and Wainuiomata’s Accacia Te Iwimate who scored 37 points against Johnsonville-Tawa.

The competition itself was shared for the first time ever, with Ories beating Norths on the final day to see the two teams finish equal on 39 points.