The Wainuiomata Rugby Football Club is hosting the inaugural Wellington club rugby 2017 BLK U85kg 7s Tournament this Saturday. Ten teams representing most of Wellington’s club sides that contest the U85kg competitions are entered. This is a highly competitive grade, so a bumper day of rugby is expected. Starting at 10.00am, there’s a game every 17 minutes, leading up to the Bowl Final at 3.57pm, the Plate Final at 4.14pm and the Cup Final at 4.31pm. Prize money is on offer, with a total prize pool of $1,850 and $750 for the winner...More

Above: Hurricanes prop Loni Uhlia, the Tongan Bear, playing for Marist St Pat's last year.  The WRFU has released its list of allocations to clubs of non-WRFU contracted players in the Hurricanes for the 2017 season. The allocation is made solely for the purpose of ensuring that Hurricanes players have somewhere to play if the Super Rugby sides coaches and management determine that a player needs game time. In the first instance however, all of these players must have sought and gained clearance from their home provincial union beforehand in order to play in Wellington’s Premier competitions...More

Above: Ten combined Wellington and Waikato players are in the 51-player squad named today. The first major 15-a-side squad announcement has been named today by the NZRU, with a Black Ferns training squad named. The 51-strong squad will be part of a regional training programme designed to identify and develop the best players in the country, ahead of the Women's Rugby World Cup in August in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Black Ferns trials will take place in mid-May. Details of an international home series in June will be announced in the coming weeks...More

Above: Buxton Popoalii streaks in for one of his two tries for Northern United against Petone in the 2008 Jubilee Cup semi-final.  As part of the build-up to the start of the 2017 Premier club rugby season, we’re recapping some of the memorable tries in Wellington Premier club rugby over the past 15 years or so. There’s been approximately 10,000 tries scored in this period, so these are just the tip of the iceberg and ones that stuck out or we reported from our vantage point on halfway or through our camera lens...More

The Auckland club sevens champions Eden are now New Zealand’s champions. The Eden sevens side have won the 2017 Middlesex County Wavell Wakefield Cup with a 26-7 win over North Harbour’s Massey in the Cup final played at a hot Collins Road in Hamilton this afternoon. Eden scored two converted tries and led 14-7 at halftime, pulling away in the second half. Eden became the seventh winner of this tournament as many years and the first Auckland club to win since Pakuranga in 2013. Next year’s tournament will be hosted at Eden, based at Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham near Eden Park, as their club name suggests...More

Melville, Eden, Massey and Suburbs unbeaten after opening day Photo credit and follow the tournament’s Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/MCNC7s/  Host club Melville, Auckland clubs Eden and Suburbs and North Harbour’s Massey were the four unbeaten clubs on day one of the National Club Sevens tournament in Hamilton. These four clubs will be joined in Sunday morning’s Cup quarterfinals by the four pool second place getters, Wellington’s the Upper Hutt Rams, Hawke’s Bay’s Napier Tech, Waikato’s the Hamilton Marist Ravens and Bay of Plenty’s Rangataua...More

Above: Now with the Chiefs, Sevu Reece was a leading player for Waikato side Melville last year. Can they defend their crown? The last back-to-back champion of this tournament was Otago’s Alhambra-Union in 2008-09. Since then winners have been University (Otago) in 2010, Burnham (Canterbury) in 2011, Pakuranga (Auckland) in 2013), Rangataua (Bay of Plenty) in 2014 and Wainuiomata (Wellington) in 2015 and Melville in 2016. The National Club Sevens tournament is being hosted by Melville in Hamilton on Saturday and Sunday...More

The New Zealand Super Rugby teams have all named their squads today for the upcoming Brisbane Global Rugby Tens tournament. Fitness and mobility around the field will be key to going deep in this tournament; as such all teams have named some dynamic players, including Vaea Fifita (above) for the Hurricanes and a group of up and coming players who are set to feature in Super Rugby this year for the first time. The squads are: Blues: Josh Goodhue, Hapakuki Moala-Liava’a, Tom Robinson, Sam Prattley (Co-Captain), Kara Pryor, Marcel Renata, Brandon Nansen, Joe Royal, Scott Scrafton, Murphy Taramai, Ambrose Curtis, Matt Duffie, Pasqualle Dunn, Billy Guyton, George Moala, Sam Nock, Declan O’Donnell, Stephen Perofeta, Rene Ranger, Jordan Trainor, Matt Vaega...More

Fourteen of New Zealand’s leading sevens rugby clubs descend on Hamilton this coming Saturday and Sunday to contest the New Zealand Club Sevens tournament. As defending champions of the Middlesex County Wavell Wakefield Cup, Melville is hosting the tournament. Last year they won at the event hosted by 2015 winners Wainuiomata, who themselves had beaten Rangataua in the Bay of Plenty the previous year. Melville subsequently swept all before them in 2016 Waikato fifteens rugby, so will be tough to dislodge on their own turf...More

Above: Tana Umaga in a tangle against Northern United in 2007. He later scored a solo try in this match that paved the way for Petone's victory.  As part of the build-up to the start of the 2017 Premier club rugby season, we’re recapping some of the memorable tries in Wellington Premier club rugby over the past 15 years or so. There’s been approximately 10,000 tries scored in this period, so these are just the tip of the iceberg and ones that stuck out or we reported from our vantage point on halfway or through our camera lens...More