Players in a league of their own
As Roger Hawkins jogs onto the field for the first game of the season there’s yelling from the sidelines.
‘‘Don’t have a heart attack.’’ The 71-year-old touch rugby player doesn’t let the comments deter him; he runs hard, fast, and doesn’t stop – even after being tagged.
‘‘As you get older it gets more difficult to stop,’’ Hawkins yells from the field, shortly before bowling into a young woman.
Hawkins is part of The Plodders: the oldest social touch rugby team in Taranaki, and potentially New Zealand.
The team has entered the social summer touch tournament at Sanders Park, New Plymouth, since 1985 – still with a handful of the original players.
John Lightfoot, 72, is the oldest, closely followed by Hawkins, 71, John Ancell, 63, and Mike Greensill, 62 – they used to play rugby together.
‘‘It’s all my old cronies from Tukapa Senior Fourth,’’ Hawkins said.
‘‘So the core part of the team, four of us, are still playing after 33 years.’’
Touch rugby expert Peter Walters, who has worked for Touch New Zealand and been involved in Auckland’s Galaxy Touch for decades, doesn’t know of another current team that has been going for more than 30 years.
‘‘It’s quite
Walters said.
Hawkins said the men still play like they did when they started, ‘‘especially downhill with a following wind’’.
Their oldest player, Lightfoot, who named the team in 1985 due impressive,’’ to the pace they were moving at, is their best according to Hawkins.
‘‘He’s a year older than me and he’s very fast. He hasn’t lost it a bit.’’
Their wives and partners don’t seem to mind them playing touch rugby because it’s an excuse to get them out of the house.
The team has lost players over the years and they’ve had to find more to fill the team.
‘‘Stepdaughters, daughters, boyfriends, girlfriends, children: we haul them out of the pubs if we have to,’’ Hawkins said.
‘‘We try to recruit goodlooking young women to do all the hard work – that’s how we’ve survived.’’
The team doesn’t have any hardcore fans, but if people start congregating on the sideline, they’re appreciated.
‘‘If anybody stops and watches us we get them to play.’’
The Plodders don’t win the games as often as they used to – they say they often come second – but that’s not what it’s about – ‘‘it’s great fun’’.
Plus, none of them have ever been seriously injured in the social sport. ‘‘It’s usually off the field we get injured.’’
It doesn’t look like either Lightfoot or Hawkins will be hanging up their boots any time soon – they’re competing to see who play for the longest.
‘‘I want to play for one year longer than John Lightfoot and he’s turned up tonight so we’re going for another two years now,’’ Hawkins said.