Hutt Old Boys Marist looking forward to Jubilee Cup defence

This coming Saturday, eight teams line up for the seven-week Jubilee Cup competition round-robin series, followed by semi-finals and the final on Sunday 2 August - two months from tomorrow.

All eight appear to be strong contenders this year. The starters, in Swindale Shield finishing order, are: Hutt Old Boys Marist, Marist St Pat’s, Oriental-Rongotai, Tawa, Wellington, Petone, Old Boys University and Wainuiomata.

On Saturday, HOBM were presented with this year’s Swindale Shield, their third first round title as an amalgamated club, after winning it in 1997 and 2012.

HOBM coach Matt Lee, who himself won several titles as a player with Petone in the late 1980s and early 1990s, agreed that this year’s Jubilee Cup is wide open.

“We’re out to win the Jubilee Cup this year, not defend it,” Lee added. “It’s going to come down to how we prepare for each game and our improvement each week. The first thing is to try and make the playoffs, and then the semi-finals come down to how you prepare and play on the day.”

“Our team has performed well above our expectations so far this season, which reflects the character within the side. From last year’s team we’ve only got nine players on deck, and have only played about six players from last year’s squad that took the Jubilee Cup.”

Injuries to key players (for example, James Wall), retirements (Steven Bradshaw, Jason Risdon) and players moving on (Taiso Silafai-Leaana, now in Australia, Chase Tiatia moved to the Bay of Plenty mid-season) have meant that several young players have come in and performed well. Players such as livewire wing Fereti Soloa and lock David Filipo have stood up for the Eagles this year.

Lee said that they are hoping to get midfielders Ope Peleseuma (injured since round four) and Tomasi Alosio (with the Samoan 7s squad) back for most of the Jubilee Cup.

Another exiting prospect set to make his Premier rugby debut in the second round is Lui Luamanu, the 2014 New Zealand Schools lock who had a shoulder operation over the summer.

Lee said the team’s also looking forward to Johnathan Bentley coming in to first five-eighth. Bentley won the 2007 Jubilee Cup with the Eagles before flying the coop for a professional career in Japan and England.

Polonga ‘Peaches’ Pedro has also returned. “Polonga has come back from living in Australia and we’re fortunate to have him back. With Polonga and Nick Risdon it’s not every day you can have two guys who have both played over 200 Premier matches on the field.”

There will be no easy games in the Jubilee Cup.

One game their supporters will be relishing is last year’s Jubilee Cup final re-match against Wainuiomata. The first round draw meant that Wainuiomata and Paremata-Plimmerton were the two sides that HOBM didn’t play.

Two first round results that stick out as being key in HOBM’s first round title win were their opening round 37-36 win over the Wellington Axemen and their 54-49 Anzac Day victory over MSP.

Lee agreed. “Those two games and also the 10th round 28-22 win over Tawa when we had to make a last minute tackle in the corner showed the belief and never-give-up attitude in the squad.”

“I put it down to good leadership on the field, not just our captain [hooker James O’Reilly] but our senior players as well. James O’Reilly has led from the front, halfback Sheridan Rangihuna’s been our little general. Then you include other experienced guys like props Otto Rasch and Simon Malaeulu and midfielder Alexis Time as well."

Can HOBM become the third team in recent years after MSP (in 2008) and Tawa (2013) to do the ‘double’ and win the Swindale Shield-Jubilee Cup in the same season?

Swindale Shield 2015 – some trivia and statistics

In winning the first round Swindale Shield, Hutt Old Boys Marist scored 373 points and conceded 285. Most years, the Swindale Shield winner also has the best points for record, for the second year in a row and the third time in the past decade (after Upper Hutt in 2005 and MSP in 2014) other teams had superior points for records. MSP scored the most points this year (412), ahead of Old Boys University (375) and HOBM. Of course, HOBM didn’t play minnows Paremata-Plimmerton.

HOBM scored 48 tries in their 11 matches; eight more than 2014 champions Marist St Pat’s.
The comparison to benchmark the team point and try scoring statistics above is, of course, Northern United in 2010, who that year scored scored 73 tries and 506 points in 11 Swindale Shield matches.

Before losing to Poneke (28-50) in round nine, HOBM had won 17 of their previous 18 matches, their only competition loss in this period up to that point being 12-13 to Wainuiomata in the final round of last year’s Jubilee Cup. They went on to beat Wainuiomata 14-11 in the final three weeks later.

Despite losing their last round match to Wainuiomata, the OBU Goats held on to qualify seventh for the Jubilee Cup. Without the extra two points that were awarded to OBU then OBU would have tied on 30 points with the Upper Hutt Rams and Poneke. Under the WRFU's tiebreaker rules the three-way tie would be broken thus:

Poneke and the Upper Hutt Rams drew
Poneke beat OBU
OBU beat the Upper Hutt Rams

With the best record of the three teams in those matches (1W, 1D), then Poneke would have gone through.

A total of 4,197 points were scored in 77 Swindale Shield matches this season, or 54.5 points per game. Last year 3196 points were scored in 66 matches, or 48.4 points per game. In 2013, with Rimutaka the competition’s minnow, 3.958 points were amassed in 66 matches or 59.9 points per game.

The Wellington Premier competition remains tightly contested, with 33 out of 77 Swindale Shield matches (43 percent) in 2015 decided by the margin of seven points of fewer. Last year 30 of 66 matches (45 percent) were decided by this margin.

The three highest scoring matches in 2015 were OBU’s 79-10 win over Paremata-Plimmerton (also the widest winning margin, 69 points), OBU’s 72-13 win over Johnsonville and Tawa’s 70-15 win over Paremata-Pllimmerton back in round one. 

The highest scoring Swindale Shield match in 2015 in terms of combined points scored was HOBM’s 54-49 win over MSP in round five on Anzac Day, with a total of 103 points and 15 tries run in.

The lowest scoring match in terms of points scored was Poneke’s 15-8 win over OBU (23 combined points) in round two, just ahead of Tawa’s 14-10 win over Wellington (24) in round three.

In comparison to the above, the highest scoring game in the Swindale Shield in the last decade was HOBM's 127-0 win over Rimutaka in round 7 in 2013 and the lowest was Norths' 7-0 win over Avalon in round 1 in 2006.

Last place Paremata-Plimmerton conceded 599 points, the third most points conceded ever after Rimutaka’s 896 in 2013 and 663 in 2012. Of course, Paremata-Plimmerton also scored more points (126) than Rimutaka did in those two seasons combined (81).

In individual scoring, three players tied on 10 tries as the leading try scorers in the 2015 Swindale Shield, these being Ories wing Afa Fa’atau, HOBM wing Fereti Soloa and Tawa blindside flanker Telea Seumanutafa. OBU centre Wes Goosen scored eight tries.

There was one individual four-try haul and eight individual hat-tricks. Petone midfielder Nick Grigg scored four tries against Paremata-Plimmerton in round eight. Players to score hat-tricks were: Max Pearson (Upper Hutt Rams), Tyler Tane (Wainuiomata), Wes Goosen (OBU), Vaea Fifita (Wellington), Joyner Key (Upper Hutt Rams), Fereti Soloa (HOBM), Sam Chamberlain (OBU) and Sean Bridge (Johnsonville).

In individual scoring, Tawa’s James So’oialo was the leading scorer with 148 points. So’oialo was one of seven players to surpass 100 points in the first round. Last year, MSP’s Fa’atonu Filli was the leading Swindale Shield points scorer with 136. So’oialo holds the first round record with 206 points for Northern United in 2010.