Off the Ball for 28 August

The Wellington Axemen and Avalon Wolves lineouts soar high in their U85kg Division 1 final on Saturday.

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.

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Two encouraging wins for the Wellington Lions to start the NPC campaign, beating Manawatu (41-29), who then went on to beat last year’s Premiership finalists Tasman on Sunday and beating stacked Premiership side Taranaki 42-26.

The Lions raced out of their den on Saturday, laying on three early tries and skipping to a 21-0 lead. This was reminiscent of their home match against Taranaki in 2004 in front of 30,000 fans at Westpac Stadium when they took a 28-0 lead after about 15 minutes and a massacre was on the cards only for them to ease off and eventually win 73-28.

Next up the Lions play the Bay of Plenty Steamers away this coming Thursday night in Rotorua, as the competition moves into a condensed Wednesday-Sunday extravaganza with each team taking a turn at playing three games in eight games.

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Bay of Plenty have several players familiar to Lions players and supporters, not least hooker James O’Reilly who most recently played in the Jubilee Cup final for Hutt Old Boys Marist a month ago. Others to play for them in the first two rounds include halfback Luke Campbell (formerly Old Boys University), fullback Chase Tiatia (HOBM), Henry Stowers (Wainuiomata) and Solomona Sakalia (Marist St Pat’s).

The Lions have the services of All Black training members Vaea Fifita and Jeff Toomaga-Allen this coming Thursday.

After the Bay of Plenty match, the Lions host Hawke’s Bay in their Wednesday night match before meeting Tasman in Blenheim next Sunday afternoon.

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The draw is yet to be confirmed, but there are several representative fixtures in Wellington this coming weekend.

The Wellington U19s host the Manawatu U19s in the final of the Central Region Shield, with the winner set to head to the National Jock Hobbs tournament in Taupo as the top seed from the Hurricanes region.

The Wellington Pride host the Hawke’s Bay Tuis in round one of the Farah Palmer Cup competition. This is the first of two consecutive home fixtures for the Pride ahead of them hosting Manawatu in week two.

The Wellington Catholic Colleges play Horowhenua-Kapiti in Wellington, while the Centurions U18s are away to East Coast, Wellington Maori away to Manawatu Development and the Wellington Samoans away to Hawke’s Bay Development.

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Three Wellington schools are in Palmerston North in the Hurricanes secondary schools finals. St Pat’s Silverstream tackle the Hastings Boys’ High School First XV juggernaut, St Mary’s College play unknown package Manukura and Porirua College take on defending Co-ed National champions Feilding High School.

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The opening round of Heartland Championship games was on Saturday, featuring a group of current and former Wellington referees and players.

Referees Vincent Ringrose and Nick Hogan refereed matches, and both were thrillers. Ringrose’s game was Buller beating South Canterbury 27-24 and Hogan’s was Horowhenua Kapiti accounting for North Otago 22-19.

Players to get on the scoresheets for their teams included former Tawa centre Timoci Seruwalu scoring a hat-trick for Wanganui over Wairarapa-Bush, and current Tawa backs Kalim Kalamete (try) and James So’oialo (try, 2 con, pen) who played leading roles in Levin.

Former Upper Hutt and Wellington halfback Alby Mathewson played in King Country’s 6-17 defeat to West Coast. Old Boys University power forward Morgan Poi and wing Te Wehi Wright played in East Coast’s 13-42 defeat to Thames Valley.

Wainuiomata’s Piri Weepu suffered an asthma attack, which cut short his Wairarapa-Bush debut. Weepu lay prone on the field as he was treated by ambulance staff early in the second half against Wanganui.

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Closer to home, there were five more winners found in club rugby on Saturday. These were Petone (First Grade Johnsonville Centennium Cup), the Johnsonville Cripples (First Grade Div 2 Paul Donoghue Memorial Cup), Wellington Axemen (U85kg Paul Potiki Memorial Shield), the Upper Hutt Rams (U85kg Div 2 Tony O’Brien Shield) and the Upper Hutt Rams again (Reserve Grade John Davies Cup).

The Upper Hutt Rams ended the season with five trophies, while Petone collected four second round titles.

The Johnsonville Cripples beat Avalon 32-17 in the First Grade Division 2 decider and the Axemen beat Avalon in the U85kg Division 1 decider, ending their season as two of three unbeaten teams on the field (Wellington defaulted a game in the season-opening knockout series) in Wellington club rugby this year. The other unbeaten side was the Oriental-Rongotai women's team.  

That’s a wrap of 25 weeks of club rugby for the year. Six months of Saturdays draws to a close and the next time the clubs don their colours will be for the local sevens tournaments circa end of October and the start of November.

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On sevens rugby, the schedule for local college sevens was released last week. College sevens tournaments are the Hutt Cup Sevens (16 September), Derek Wootton Sevens (23 September), Condor Sevens Wellington qualifying tournament (23 October), U15 Sevens (28 October), Hurricanes Youth Rugby Council Sevens (28 October) and National Condor Sevens in Auckland (2-4 December).

Having attended the Condor Sevens Nationals in Auckland last year and witnessed first-hand its growth and popularity, Wellington should be looking to send one or more U15 teams to the one-day U15 tournament on the Friday.

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The U85kg grade remains one of the most competitive grades, and it is a shame the Centurions don't have a representative programme this year. Hopefully they will in to the future! The final was as compelling as any season decider should be. The home team the Axemen stormed out of the blocks and threatened to run away with it. But the visitors Avalon dug deep and came back and scored two sweetly struck tries to send the final down to the final whistle.

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The MSP Internationals finished their 10th anniversary season with a 72-0 win over the OBU Teddy Bears to win The Establishment Wellington Cup which is played for between the two sides.

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Our favourite two tries from the weekend (apart from hooker Asafo Aumua’s try for the Lions up the right wing) were both scored by openside flankers, both shooting through rucks to score. Wellington U19s flanker and captain Naera Tipoki’s and Wellington Axemen U85kg flanker Phil Wakefield’s tries were both clutch ones in the context of their games.

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The NZDF Defence Blacks downed the Australian Defence Force team 39-14 at Davis Field, Trentham, in the third game of the 2017 Military Tri-Nations Rugby Tournament, also involving France. The game commemorated 100 years since New Zealand and Australia's militaries played each other in Paris in 1917 for the Somme Cup.

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Interesting Test match on Saturday night. Interesting two Tests. The Wallabies scored 45 unanswered points and across both games and lost both! They came back from 6-54 down in Sydney and then leapt to a 17-0 lead in Dunedin before the All Blacks got on the board.

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Congratulations to the Black Ferns for winning the Women’s World Cup, beating England 41-32 in the final in Belfast in front of 18,000 spectators.

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Members of the Waitete Rugby Club shared one last handle with their mate Pinetree on Sunday.At 1pm a crowd of about 100 formed a guard of honour, as Sir Colin Meads was carried into the clubrooms.  For a short time there was silence before fond memories and stories, from those who knew him best, filled the room. Sir Colin Meads joined the club in 1951 and played his last game in 1975. His funeral is today.

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