Off the ball for 7 August

Above: A perfect sunny day greeted visiting English team Sedbergh School who took on Bishop Viard College at Porirua Park on Saturday. Read more about their visit below. 

Off the Ball is in association with Rob Law Max , Lovelocks Sports Bar  and Harcourts Johnsonville 

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.

After a difficult several weekends of club rugby weather-wise, the rugby gods shined on Wellington on Saturday with perfect weather, sunny skies and little wind.

Petone were the big winners on the day, winning three of the six finals, winning the Colts Division 1 final, the Premier Reserve final and the Women's Division 2 final. They didn't have to travel to far to celebrate.

Old Boys University had four teams in finals, but only won one. However, that was their Jubilee Cup team winning the main event. Reports were of a raucous time of it at their clubrooms, the Cambridge.

Oriental-Rongotai won the Women's final, beating Old Boys University 63-8 in the curtain-raiser on Petone Rec 1, and going through the season unbeaten. Their record in 2017 was: Played 14, Won 14, Points For 705,  Points against 117, Tries scored 126. 

The Upper Hutt Rams fell two short of the ton, beating the Avalon Wolves 98-12, clearly the biggest victory in Premier rugby this season.  Tyler Tane kicked 14 out of 14 conversions. He also scored a try to finish with 33 points for the match. The Rams also won the Hardham Cup with next week's final round to spare, and they will be presented with the trophy after their dead rubber next weekend against Poneke.

There are still lower grade club rugby competitions to come, including the U85kg and First Grade championship seasons to come. Details of what is happening in these grades will have to be confirmed, at the time of publication results from their games on Saturday remained unavailable.

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Old Boys University right wing Teegan Minkley scored two tries in the 32-19 final win over Hutt Old Boys Marist. Minkley became the third consecutive wing to score twice in the Jubilee Cup final for the winners, after Joe Hill for OBU in 2015 and Junior Togia for Tawa in 2016.

The players to have scored two tries in the Jubilee Cup final since this website started in 2005 have been: 

2006: Neil Meyer (Poneke)
2010: Buxton Popoailii (Northern United)
2011: Afa Fa'atau (Oriental-Rongotai)
2015: Joe Hill (OBU)
2016: Junior Togia (Tawa), Matt Peni (MSP)
2017: Daven Candy (OBU), Teegan Minkley (OBU)

Minkley also finished his season with a flourish, scoring braces in each of his last three games and in four of his five past matches. Unsurprisingly, Minkley was the Jubilee Cup's top try scorer with 9 tries, ahead of teammate and flanker Daven Candy with 7 (also two tries in the final) and HOBM back Brandy Laursen with 6. OBU first five-eighth Dale Dabbagh finished the second round with 110 points. We will do a complete season points and try scoring wrap next week at the conclusion of the Hardham Cup. 

Old Boys University set the single season team try scoring record since 2005, scoring 130 tries in 22 games. In 2010 Northern United scored 122 tries in 20 games. 

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The Best & Fairest points awarded from the final were: 3 points Regan Verney (OBU second five-eighth); 2 points Daven Candy (OBU openside flanker) and 1 point Simon Malaeulu (HOBM loosehead prop). We will publish our annual Best & Fairest Team of the Season tomorrow. 

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Also setting a record on Saturday was Oriental-Rongotai left wing Ayesha Leti-L'iga who broke the Oriental-Rongotai club record for most tries by an individual in a season. Her hat-trick in the Women's final brought her season tally to 26, one ahead of Jane Bryce's (now with MSP) record in 2015. According to our records, the top 10 all-time single season try scorers are ((Men's Premier and Women's):

26 Michael Knight (Wellington FC) 1970
26 Ayesha Leti-l'iga (Oriental-Rongotai (2017
25 Mike Clamp (Petone) 1981
25 Jane Bryce (Oriental-Rongotai (2015) 
23 Buxton Popoalii (Northern United) 2010
22 Wayne Collins (Poneke) 1977
22 Greg Kingi (Petone) 1994
21 Alapati Leiua (Northern United) 2009
20 Bernie Fraser (Hutt Valley Marist) 1978
19 - Three players with 19 tries in a season

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Great that All Blacks hooker Dane Coles appeared for his Poneke club on Saturday. Coles scored a try playing at No. 8 in Poneke’s 38-29 win over Paremata-Plimmerton.The last time Coles played club rugby was in the 2012 Hardham Cup final, which Poneke beat Old Boys University 20-17.

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Brian Lochore has come out in the media with the following thoughts, on the importance of club rugby - article here

"I believe strongly in club rugby, I believe it is the backbone of rugby in this country and if we don't have it, we will die. But we have to work at it and the rugby union have to work at it. It can't be done on its own."

But he was confident its importance was not lost on New Zealand Rugby.

"I think they are very conscious of needing to keep making club rugby strong," he said. "It is a question of highlighting it really.

"Unfortunately very few All Blacks play club rugby unless they are coming back from an injury, even the Super [Rugby] guys may only get three or four games in a season, if that. That really makes it hard for club rugby to be highlighted. If you highlight something you get people wanting to play it, but if you only have a few spectators, people don't worry."

The instances of current Hurricanes and All Blacks playing club rugby this year in Wellington are few and far between. On example is Wes Goosen, who played three matches for OBU this year, scoring two tries in a Swindale Shield round 9 win over Northern United (TJ Perenara was Norths water boy in this match) and played in Saturday's final.

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The Hurricanes held their end of season awards last week. 

Manawatu midfielder Ngani Laumape was the Player of the Year. Laumape’s 15 tries bettered Tana Umaga’s single-season Hurricanes record, and tied the Investec Super Rugby all-time single season try-count achieved previously by wings Rico Gear (Crusaders in 2005) and Joe Roff (Brumbies in 1997).

Laumape, Matt Proctor and Ardie Savea were joint Best & Fairest winners, Jordie Barrett was Rookie of the Year, Callum Gibbins was Team Man of the Year and Geoff Cridge won the Super XV award. 

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In First XV rugby, the semi-finalists of the WelTec Premiership are the same as in 2015. Top qualifier St Pat's Silverstream will host St Pat's Town and second placed Scots College will entertain third placed Wellington College. 

The St Pat's Silverstream second XV has also qualified top for the Murray Jensen Cup Premier 2 semi-finals. They will play Aotea College this weekend at home, while nearby Hutt International Boys' School will play St Bernard's College in the 2 v 3 playoff. 

In the girls' competition, the AoteaCollege and St Mary’s College First XVs are automatically through to the Premier 1 Final on Wednesday 16 August.  The Premier 2 final will also be played that night, both finals at Porirua Park.

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A perfect sunny day greeted Sedbergh School who took on Bishop Viard College at Porirua Park (photo above). Sedbergh is an English school from Cumbria. The school has brought their First XV and a junior development squad (their Junior Big Squad) on a tour of Hong Kong and New Zealand. In New Zealand their top team scored large wins over St Bede's (Christchurch), Rangiora High School, Lincoln University Colts, Nelson College 2nd XV and Viard College. The tour organisers have enjoyed the trip and hospitality but were disappointed that they couldn't play more highly rated teams.

Sedbergh's brown jersey is a famous fixture of English schools rugby. Their old boys include legendary English international centres Will Greenwood and Will Carling.

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A Wellington XV lost 14-28 to Manawatu on Saturday, former Wellington club players Hunter Prescott (Ories, 2) and Lewis Marshall (Wainuiomata/Petone) scoring three of the Turbos four tries. The Wellington Lions play their next men's NPC pre-season match this coming Thursday in Seddon against the Tasman Makos. 

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Lest we Forget. Tomorrow is the 102nd anniversary of the Battle of Chunuk Bair at Gallipoli, involving the Wellington Battalion and Wellington Mounted Rifles. Tomorrow in 1915, Chunuk Bair, the highest peak on the Gallipoli Peninsula and key objective, was taken. A lack of support and Turkish counter-attacks meant the chance was lost within 48 hours. The Ataturk Memorial on Wellington's South Coast commemorates this. Many of Wellington's club rugby players fought in and lost their lives in the Great War 1914-18.

Contributions to Off the Ball to editor@clubrugby.co.nz