Am I the eternal optimist, or what?? Every time I go to the Fridge I see the Swindale/Harper Lock Shield draw held on to the door by the Hurricanes fridge magnet playing schedule. At least the bottle opener is close by. Who would have thought? Although the postponements that became cancellations were not what Rugby purists (indeed what no Sport fans wanted), I must admit to being proud that the NZRU took a very early stance in light of this Virus. Very quickly this was handed on from WRFU whilst a lot of Sports mucked around unable to make a decisive decision. The worst were those pretenders in yellow jerseys, along with the NRL and even sillier, the Olympics. Fortunately they seem to have come to their senses, well maybe one of them at time of writing. Rugby has shown the best Leadership by acknowledging that our great game is not above a World Wide pandemic. Lets be honest, a bloody hard decision, but the right one for New Zealand and indeed the Sport as a whole.

It is hoped that some Games may be played at local, Super and possibly International level, but as usual in these times, time will tell. There is no doubt a lot of Clubs and Unions are really hurting right now, and if we started playing this weekend, it would still be too late for some Clubs from a financial aspect. Costs still continue even with a vacant Clubrooms. Which coincidently brings me to an item that we discussed at our recent Committee Meeting held on Monday night – held using Jitsi Meet. Like a lot of Sports, we are having a few issues (not many as we have awesome Club Sponsors), with little income.

As a lot of Readers will know, I am very keen on Motor Racing. I had tickets to the Supercars at Pukekohe, then Hampton Downs and was seriously considering a race in Ozzie. That came to an end very early on as well. However, not all is lost. Indycars and Supercars have set up E-racing. As I write this Report, Supercars are racing at Silverstone and Barcelona, racetracks Supercars have never raced at. The graphics are so good, that at a glance you would almost think it was the real thing. Last night they even had Formula One Driver Max Verstappen driving. So in the last race, Barcelona, Shane van Gisbergen won whilst sitting in his Home in Auckland, Max Verstappen came second sitting in his home in Monaco and third was Scott McLaughlin from his home in Brisbane. Pretty awesome. Scott has to get up at 2am (Oz time) to compete in the IndyCar series. In case you are interested, the Indycars are around 0600NZT (YouTube) on Sunday and the Supercars are 2000hrs (SkySport 5) on Wednesday. NASCAR are also now up and running. On a solemn note, we lost a true Gentleman of Formula One this week, Stirling Moss. A true pioneer of the sport.

A new segment to my Report – Muppet of the Week!!

Very hard to choose between these two; Trump “it will be all over by Easter” or David Clark “do as I say, not as I do”.

It would be very remiss of me not to mention the ongoing support of our Sponsors. Like all of us, they are all going through hard times as well. Unable to open, sell services or products and goods makes it very hard to have surplus cash. On behalf of the Tawa Rugby Club, I thank all our Valued Sponsors very much for their ongoing support. When things come right, I implore our Members, Supporters, Players, to look up our Sponsors to see if you can use their services.

In closing, just a reminder that all of us have to remain safe. This “Bubble” is very effective and not too hard to comply with. And a quick shout out to our Tawa “essential services” people. These are the people who have to leave their Bubble to ensure the rest of us can be assured of our ongoing safety.

Kia kaha!