Wellington U19s profile: Jimmy Hewitt

Above: Jimmy Hewitt playing for the Poneke Premiers against Tawa this year. Photo Credit: Dave Brownlie 

The Wellington U19's won the inaugural Graham Mourie Cup at the National Jock Hobbs Memorial event in 2014. Last year they underwhelmed and finished fifth. Leading up to the 2016 tournament, Club Rugby will profile some of the young Lions who are likely to feature in the tournament and who are the future of the game in the capital.

Contact trainings at the Poneke Premiers this year have often had an extra edge to them when rookie flanker/hooker Jimmy Hewitt has been around.

Most of his Poneke teammates have felt the force of a Jimmy Hewitt hit this year, not to mention several opposition players in matches who have come up against the player who is touted as a future leader and who played 16 games, including 13 starts, in his first season of Wellington Premier club rugby this year.

“My dad taught me how to tackle properly when I first started playing rugby as a junior for the Wests Roosters, Jimmy said. “There’s a little secret to the tackle technique that my dad gave me and it’s worked well so far!”

Jimmy, who has progressed from the Wellington College First XV and Wellington U18s this time last year to a Jubilee Cup and U19s representative player, has embraced the transition from schoolboy to senior player. “It’s a lot harder though. The way the games are played, the speed and the physicality made it a massive step up from First XV rugby.”

He explained that he was originally going to join Tawa in 2016. “I was going to go to Tawa because all my boys from college went there, like Sitiveni Paongo and Kemara Hauiti-Hemara, and I didn’t want to have to make new friends.

“But my auntie Maria Moananu is quite close to the club and she talked to my mum and said that Poneke would look after me well.”

The rugby playing Moananu brothers, Fili, Fa'atoto, Misipalauni and the late Misiluni, are his uncles. “I didn’t really know them that well, but when I came to the club I definitely got closer to them and others and they all made me feel really welcome.”

Humble and hardworking, Jimmy has been learning from the best this year, with players such as openside flanker and Wellington Sevens representative Joe Scheres and current Wellington Lions duo Greg Foe and Galu Taufale there for him to soak up much of what he needs to know about both loose forward and traditional Poneke forward play.

‘I’ve enjoyed playing with those guys and have learned a lot from them and they’ve helped me heaps with my rugby. It’s been good playing alongside them and especially having to step into Joe Scheres’ position and playing alongside Greg Foe.”

Jimmy has been playing more than one position for the past couple of years.

“I’ve been playing both hooker and flanker for Poneke this year, I enjoy both and if I can keep getting on the field I’m happy, “he said.

In his two years in the Wellington College First XV he played both positions, plus when Wellington College needed to shore up their defence last year he moved out to second five-eighth for some matches.

He’s been playing hooker for the U19s for their past two matches against the Hurricanes Barbarians and Hawke’s Bay U19s.”

The start of his season was halted by injury. “During the pre-season against the Upper Hutt Rams I injured my hip so that set me back for a few weeks.” He returned to make his Premier debut against minnows Johnsonville under lights at Wakefield Park in round three.

Later in the campaign he got to play on Westpac Stadium under lights when Poneke took on the Upper Hutt Rams, his second time playing there after a previous pre-season First XV game between Wellington College and Palmerston North Boys’ High School.

Outside of rugby, Jimmy works part time as a teacher aide and said he also enjoys playing squash.