Above: Three well known secondary school players in line to make their senior rugby debuts this year Kemara Hauiti-Parapara (Wellington College to Tawa), Alex Fidow (Scots College to Ories) and Asafo Aumua (St Pat's Silverstream to Avalon) Year in, year out the Wellington club rugby competition produces new talent for fans and supporters to get enthused about. From Joe Karam in the early 1970s to TJ Perenara a few years ago to the current crop of recent school leavers, people can look back and say ‘I was there’ when they first played senior rugby...More

Two well-known current Wellington club rugby players and mates have recently teamed up off the field to offer current players and supporters a home loan and house sale offer that directly helps local rugby clubs. Jon Masaga (above, left) is a former hard-running Tawa winger/midfielder and Wellington Orcas Wellington league team captain who is back playing rugby this year for the Old Boys University club as a loose forward. Clayton Masina (right) is a long-time Upper Hutt and Rimutaka midfielder, currently in the Upper Hutt Rams Premier and Premier Reserve wider squad...More

Above: Junior Togia breaking the line, a regular sight in Wellington Premier rugby over the past decade and a half - this time against Northern United last season. Photo credit: Jun Tanlayco. The pre-season is over, preparations are nearly complete and Wellington’s Premier and Premier Reserve players and supporters from Miramar to Mana now await the start of the new of rugby club rugby season, which gets underway this coming Good Friday with a full round of Swindale Shield and Harper Lock Shield matches...More

Above: Old Boys University supporters in the stands at Porirua Park last August watching their side win the Jubilee Cup.  The 2016 Wellington club rugby season kicks of this coming Friday with a full round of Premier Swindale Shield and Premier Reserve Harper Lock Shield fixtures. Here is our inaugural A-Z looking at the season ahead: A: AvalonMuch like Fraser Park around them, Avalon are in a state of redevelopment having only returned to Premier last year and enduring a tough and winless Swindale campaign before going on to make the Hardham Cup semifinals...More

Above: The Wellington Axemen's pack taking it to eventual champions Old Boys University last June at home at Hataitai Park in their first Jubilee Cup match in 20 years. Expect more of the same in 2016. Photo courtesy of Wellington Axemen Facebook   The Wellington Axemen made the Jubilee Cup for the first time since 1995 last year. Despite that milestone Wellington's last round defeat to Hutt Old Boys Marist left a bitter taste in the mouth. "We won two games and competed in every fixture, but that last round defeat meant we finished last, despite winning one more game than Marist," coach Richard Deck explains...More

The upcoming Wellington club season will be played with several law changes in effect, with World Rugby having brought them into force from 1 January 2016 in the southern hemisphere, and 1 July 2016 in the northern. Most of the changes are relatively minor and in some cases align the law book with current practice. However there are some with greater effect, particularly with the scrum. These are not the more expansive trial laws which will be on show in the rebranded NPC Mitre10 Cup later this year, with the WRFU having chosen not to implement those into its competition...More

Above: Three consecutive Billy Wallace winners: Andy Leslie (Petone, 1972), John Dougan (Petone, 1973) and Dave Henderson (Wellington FC, 1974). Photo credits to the Dominion and to Rugby Weekly. Celebrating 50 years of the Billy Wallace Best and Fairest Wellington Premier club rugby competition. The Billy Wallace competition has been contested annually since its inception in 1966. Players in every Premier match are awarded points on a 3, 2 and 1 basis. Part 2 below profiles the winners between 1971-1975...More

Above: TJ Perenara, a man of the people and a record try-scroring Super Rugby halfback. In scoring two tries last night against the Blues, Hurricanes halfback and captain TJ Perenara (Northern United) extended his try-scoring strike-rate to 33 tries in 64 Super Rugby matches, moving ahead of Oriental-Rongotai’s Julian Savea who has scored 31 tries in 75 matches and Cory Jane of the Upper Hutt Rams with 24 in 97 as the leading try-scorer in the 2016 Hurricanes team. He scored a hat trick of tries in his Hurricanes competition debut against the Western Force in Perth back in 2012...More

Above: The OBU second XV celebrating their Premier Reserve championship victory at Wellington College last August, a week after the Jubilee Cup (inset) found its current home behind the bar. The Jubilee Cup takes pride of place at the back of the bar at the Cambridge Hotel, and the Old Boys University Goats are determined to let it stay there beyond August this year. 2016 Head Coach Jeremy Little explained there’s a good vibe at Goat HQ heading into the season, which kicks off on Good Friday, 25 March...More

The WelTec Premiership is set to expand to 10 teams, but not until 2017. The decision was made at the Wellington Secondary Schools Rugby Union’s AGM last Friday. It had been proposed to expand the present eight-team WelTec Premiership Wellington secondary school First XV competition this season, exposing more players to the top-flight; but with several schools’ Traditional schedules for this year largely locked in place it was decided to delay the increase until next season. As in the previous few years, the top four schools from last season, champions St Pat’s Town, runners-up Scots College, St Pat’s Silverstream and Wellington College will square off against the Hurricanes-region schools that play in the Super 8 competition - Gisborne Boys’ HS, Hastings Boys’ HS, Napier Boys’ HS and Palmerston North Boys’ HS - in the Tranzit Coachlines First XV pre-season series...More