Elite high school players seek even greener pastures

Whoever is in these kids’ ears is not steering them Manawatu’s way.

This year two Feilding High School rugby players, Vilimoni Koroi and Mosese Dawai, were selected for the New Zealand Schools team.

On that basis you might expect they would be future assets for Manawatu. But hold your horses. Given the history of Feilding High players going elsewhere or taking the well-trodden Whitelock route to Canterbury, we didn’t hold our breath.

Since Feilding High’s first XV emergence as a schools rugby force, only three players from that school have gone on to be established frontline Turbos – Aaron Smith, Nick Crosswell and Hamish Northcott.

So many have preferred to seek pastures greener, and only a handful under the guise of tertiary education. Not Koroi and Dawai. They were offered either full Turbos contracts or close to it and yet have chosen to go to Otago on some sort of Highlanders’ deal.

Which begs another question: Where were the Hurricanes in all this – or are they only looking at Wellington?

Whoever is in these kids’ ears is not steering them Manawatu’s way, even if they have often profited from development in our province. Worse, after signing to go south, instead of being given the cold shoulder, the two were then picked for the Manawatu sevens team. Manawatu should not be spending one more cent on them and their selection should have been immediately rescinded.

It is almost obscene that Super Rugby franchises are now pillaging schools players. Manawatu has already found that signing stars from school don’t necessarily translate to making the grade at Turbos’ level.

Fortunately, Manawatu signed the best of the school crop this year, NZ Schools captain Brayden Iose from Palmerston North Boys’ High School, which since 2006 has been the overwhelmingly prime staffer of the Turbos.

By contrast, Feilding High’s ascent has been aided by unashamedly plucking talent from Whanganui and Horowhenua, meaning many of them don’t have the Manawatu DNA.

Feilding High’s modus operandi is its business, but Boys’ High, to its credit, is not in the import or export business.

Dawai, like All Black Codie Taylor, spent only one year at Feilding High, so the school can take only fleeting credit for them.

It seems daft for Koroi, from a Whanganui family, to be heading south to cooler climes. Manawatu’s fullback stocks are low and he might have been a shot at wearing the Turbos’ No 15 jersey as soon as next year.

A hip hop Christmas for mayor

Palmerston North mayor Grant Smith has been an A-grade squash player for much of his life. But from December 15, he won’t be playing squash for some time.

His Christmas present will be an operation on his right hip. And when he returns to the squash court, it will be to play doubles only.

He had to mingle with the military troops at the charter parade and the 1812 Overture and Beating the Retreat ceremony before a big crowd in The Square on Saturday. It entailed some marching and the mayor got through it before the painkillers wore off.

Funnily enough, that was the first time armed forces from Linton Military Camp and Ohakea air force base had marched together, most strange considering they have long been on each other’s doorsteps.

When Smith inspected the troops, many of us wondered what he asked them. Well, he apparently received ‘‘intel’’ beforehand, taking cues from the medals and various unit badges they wore. One soldier had been in the British Army and had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Smith was told that when he took the podium, the flypast of four T-6C Texan trainers from Ohakea would happen at a precise time. Afterwards, he told an officer how impressed he was with the planes’ punctuality, only to be told: ‘‘No sir, they were five seconds late.’’

The usual flypast was missing from this year’s Anzac Day dawn ceremony in The Square, as were the customary rifle volleys, apparently because the noise levels would have been too much for kids. Well, next year I hear Palmy will have No 5 priority for a flypast, after the main centres, and the rifles should be back too. Noone suffered permanent otological damage from the rifle and artillery salvoes on Saturday.

Big golf event on Horizon

Word is getting around that the country’s second-biggest men’s professional golf tournament is being lined up to be played at Hokowhitu in late February.

If so, it will add to a thin calendar for major summer sporting events in Manawatu. Others that come to mind are a Central Districts cricket one-dayer and the annual national superstocks teams champs.

While on summer, I’m already tired of watching the Black Caps and their pop-gun attack chasing leather in Australia, batting second after winning the toss, chasing 350 runs plus and chasing me off to the sack early.