First round winners Northern United and Wainuiomata have sealed the top qualifier’s positions for next week’s Wellington club rugby semi-finals in the respective top 7 Jubilee Cup and bottom 7 Hardham Cup competitions. Norths have won the Andy Leslie trophy for winning the Jubilee Cup round-robin for the first time since 2010, pipping Old Boys University 13-10 at Narniville Park. Wainuiomata edged the Wellington Axemen 23-22 at Hataitai Park to finish top in the Hardham Cup. In other Jubilee Cup results today on a gritty, windy final afternoon of the regular season for 2018, Tawa came back to score a late try and draw 17-17 with Oriental-Rongotai at the Polo Grounds and Poneke finished their season with a flourish, beating Hutt Old Boys Marist 50-26 at Kilbirnie Park...More

Tomorrow sees the end of the round-robin part of the season in the top four grades with only the playoffs to come to decide the champions in each in two weeks’ time.   It’s also in some respects a historic occasion as for the first-time two players will play their 200th Premier matches on the same day. Both Petone’s Eugene Smith and Hutt Old Boys Marist’s Simon Malaeulu have been stalwarts of the club game for well over a decade, and such is the respect that they’re each held in by the club rugby community their milestone achievement will be saluted across the province...More

Above: Jeff Toomaga-Allen is starting in his 100th game on Friday for the Hurricanes. The UK's Royal Post recently published a set of stamps to mark the 50th anniversary of the country's greatest ever sitcom, Dad's Army. Each stamp has a catchphrase of one of the characters. Given this Friday's quarterfinal could be a tragedy for fans, I thought it might be better to treat it as a comedy. We're Doomed, Doomed Pretty much. I've tried to be optimistic in the lead-up to this Friday but it's hard to feel like the side actually has a win in them in the quarters...More

There are just three weeks remaining in the senior club rugby season, which means good form is more important now than it has been previously. Soon lucrative silverware is on the line. Defending Jubilee Cup champions Old Boys University have a chance to defend their title having reached the semi-finals with a round to spare. Billy Goats Jack Green and Matt Fowler are especially excited using law lectures to supply Club Rugby with some interesting form XVs. Club Rugby strongly endorses this waste of study time and decided to join in on the fun by supplying a few form XVs of our own and casting the opinion of referee and leading contributor Scott MacLean for a ‘one from each club XV’...More

Eugene Smith (left) and Misipalauni Moananu lead the Petone and Poneke teams out for Poneke's 125th match in 2008.  Eugene Smith is proud to be joining the 200-game Premier club this coming Saturday when his Petone side plays its final regular season match of the year against Johnsonville at Helston Park. The long-serving Petone hooker, former captain, Jubilee Cup and Swindale Shield winner is also satisfied with the opportunity this year to give back to the game and help develop the next generation of young players...More

Above: MSP's Isaiah Petelo attempts to chargedown a John Monu kick in their match this week in 2012. Petelo and hooker Liu Tautave score tries as MSP win 26-14 and take a step towards winning this year's Jubilee Cup.  In association with Lovelocks Sports Bar on Bond Street in Wellington, some highlights from this week in Wellington club rugby history are below. 16 July 1960: Soon-to-be Jubilee Cup champions Marist win a key victory over close rivals Onslow. With the game locked up at 3-3 deep into the second half, Marist first five-eighth C...More

Above: The HOBM President's side after their win over Paremata-Plimmerton at Ngatitoa Domain on Saturday. PHOTO: Warwick Burke. Off the Ball is in association with Rob Law Max, Lovelocks Sports Bar,  Motor Doctors and Sarah Kilner Real Estate  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. It’s all downhill to another big weekend. On Friday night the Hurricanes host the Chiefs in a Super Rugby quarter-final at Westpac Stadium...More

Above: Ories celebrate their match-winning try against Norths in their come-from-behind 37-33 Jubilee Cup win. UPDATED: A dramatic last-play win today for Oriental-Rongotai over Northern United, a win for Marist St Pat’s over Poneke that denied them a bonus point and an OBU shutout of Tawa means the four Jubilee Cup semi-finalists have been found with a week to spare in Wellington Premier club rugby. Oriental-Rongotai scored a try with the final play of the game to beat Norths 37-33, MSP scored two late tries to beat Poneke 43-25, the latter only scoring three tries, and OBU secured a bonus point 31-12 win over Tawa...More

Above: Josh Hunt and the Upper Hutt Rams are hoping to push on through to the semi-finals when they play Petone in a clutch sixth round Hardham Cup fixture tomorrow. The good news is the weather is going to be much better than last weekend. PHOTO: Hugh Pretorius.  After last weekend’s difficult weather conditions look to be much better for tomorrow’s penultimate rounds in the main grades and hopefully with it open running rugby.     The carrot for several teams is that they can punch their ticket for the playoffs in their grade while for others its win or bust, and there’s key matches in every grade starting with the two Women’s Division 1 clashes at 11...More

An inaugural College Connection match is being played at Porirua Park this Friday evening between a Porirua Combined Colleges team and an Eastern Suburbs Colleges team. The aim of the match is to help the clubs that are involved connect with their college players that have played for them as juniors and keep them connected before they leave school. The target players are those that aren't necessarily playing in their schools First XVs or in current representative rugby programmes, but the 2nd, 3rds XVs and weight restricted sides...More