Hi ,

We were almost at the end of the Season, when the Winter weather caught up. What a wicked day, weather-wise. Clearly this had no effect on our devout Rugby Fans! One hell of a crowd to watch 4 brilliant games of Rugby.

A very good Game to start with Oriental-Rongotai vs Stokes Valley (Premier 2) in the Final of the HD Morgan Cup. The ground was definitely the leveller, with a number of heavy showers going through in a horizontal momentum with a breeze to match. Pretty close Game with Ories taking the Game 12-8.

Our unbeaten (in 49 Games) Boys played in the Ed Chaney Cup Final against Poneke. This was a real test of our Boys - not to forget the Management & Supporters who braved the weather, but risked their health with a Game Tawa was losing 17-15 into the last minute. A Penalty, a Kick and a Happy 50th to our Premier 2's. Very worthy Winners. Once again, it was my honour and privilege to do the presentations along with a fellow VP, Martin Isberg. The Poneke Captain was well spoken and humble in defeat. Our Captain, Brad, was as usual very complimentary to Poneke, humble in the Victory and thanked the Boys, Management and made a special mention of the Supporters. I think this is my third time of presenting the Ed Chaney Cup to Tawa. As an aside, Tawa were the first winners of this Cup in 1968.

Petone played MSP for the Hardham Cup. With a half-time score of 5-6, it looked as though it could be anyone's Game. Full-time showed a win for Petone by 30-13.

On to the coveted Jubilee Cup. The Game was between the all conquering Paremata-Plimmerton and 8th place Oriental-Rongotai. Apparently 2 Bus loads of Supporters came in from Oriental-Rongotai and 8 Bus loads of Supporters from Paremata-Plimmerton. The Hutt Rec was jam packed! Flags adorned every part of the outer field. The Field was in perfect condition, the Officials were in position, the Supporters were in full voice, and on came the Players to the various chants, dependant on who you were supporting. The start was the usual to-ing and fro-ing with each Team pushing to create a dominance. Against all the Pundits and the Experts, somehow the Game was not going the way of the top-of-the-Table team. Ories were ahead 27-14 at half-time. The Teams turned with the breeze still a factor. A very tense 40 minutes with a converted try each. End result, Oriental-Rongotai deserved Winners of the Jubilee Cup.

After which the various speeches were made. Our WRFU President, Alan Muir, spoke to the Second Place-getters and the Winners. Alan reminded them of the distance they had travelled to get to this Final and the way it was played. The presentations then took place with the WRFU President and the WRFU Vice-Presidents; Sal O'reilly-Nugent, Rebecca Liua'ana, Ken Ah Kuoi, Martin Isberg and myself. I reckon very few of the Crowd had left before the official bit.

Our U85 Boys are playing Tukapa this Saturday, with a Wednesday night Game against Stokes Valley starting at 1900hrs.

Allan G Davidson

President

UPCOMING GAMES | 29 JULY

We will be live streaming the 85s this weekend on Tawa Rugby Live. 

UPCOMING GAMES | 2 AUGUST