Rugby honoured at stadium

This winter sport season Hockey Manawatu has seen a new club enter the women’s club competition. It has been over 20 years since Bush has entered a women’s team.

The community has supported the start-up of this club, with the Waireka Community Trust sponsoring the teams uniforms, goalie gear, and team supplies. We are extremely grateful for the large donation they made to support our dreams of getting a senior hockey team entered into the Manawatu competition.

It is great to see many community members getting back into the sport - despite many of the women having not played since high school, they are raring to go for the season ahead.

The team is playing in the women’s premier competition after Covid-19 resulted in the premier and premier reserve grades being combined. There is a total of 13 teams entered this season, fighting to win the premier and premier reserve trophies.

The season hit off on Saturday, June 20 and is set to wrap up in the middle weekend of October. This

Bush Rugby over the years is to be highlighted with the mounting of two honours boards at Bush MultiSports Stadium.

When the Konini Rugby Jubilee was held in 2006, season the team is coached by Aaron Inwood, a premier men’s player, who has had experience coaching agegroup representative teams, we are grateful to have him on board.

The team has started off well. The first game was against College A, a premier women’s team, we got the first goal in but came off secondbest with a 5-1 loss. Our second game was a tough fight against Massey Premier Reserves, whom a third of the Bush team played for last season. We came out on top after dominating the pitch and taking our first win, 2-0. surplus funds held from the function together with some contributions from the Bush Sports Club and others have enabled two honours boards to be displayed at the Stadium in Pahiatua.

This was organised by David Galvin (ex-New Zealand Rugby Union) and Pahiatua

The Bush team is looking forward to their only home game this season down at Bush Multisport Complex on Saturday, July 11 at 2.30pm accountant Tony Fouhy.

The boards outline Bush Rugby until 1971. Bush then amalgamated with Wairarapa for the New Zealand union rugby (although Bush subunion representative games against Feilding Women’s. It would be great to see the community down there showing their support.

We are grateful to the continued.)

“Highlights of early years of Wairarapa-Bush are included on the boards,” said Tony Fouhy. “The representative team was competitive against the very best of New Zealand community for allowing our dreams to be a reality. Watch this space as we hope to continue to grow senior hockey for our community. teams during that period.”

Konini ex-players and supporters together with all ex-Bush Representatives are invited to attend the function to be held at 11am on Saturday, July 11.

Ross Algie was a Konini Rugby Club member for ten years in the 60s along with Tony Fouhy (1963-67), who toured with the Bush team. Clinton Worthington (right) is president of Bush Rugby and has played for Bush Colts at Rugby Park. He has coached and played over the last five years.

David Galvin’s name is on the board. He was a member of the New Zealand Rugby Union the year of the first World Cup, where he organised bringing over the Canadian team.