Showdown shapes as a crunch clash
The Hauroko Valley school’s Rippa Rugby team are heading to Wellington.
The small rural western Southland school, which has a role of just 63 pupils, won the Southland Primary Schools Rippa Rugby tournament held at Rugby Park in Invercargill yesterday.
Eighteen schools took part in the tournament and it was Hauroko Valley – coached by their principal Glen Puna – who claimed the honours. They beat St Patricks from Invercargill 25-20 in a thrilling final. The victory means Hauroko Valley will head to a New Zealand Rippa Rugby tournament in Wellington in August.
Many Stags players were on hand to referee the games and mix with the kids in the tournament, which was run by Rugby Southland.
The big game
It’s all on at Waverley Park today as Star and Blues go at it in a game which is shaping as pretty much a quarterfinal showdown in Southland’s premier club rugby competition.
The two teams are tied for fourth at the moment, locked up on 10 points.
While the club season only feels like it has just got underway there are only four round-robin fixtures remaining before the playoffs.
Everything is pointing to the Eastern-Northern Barbarians, Marist, and Woodlands grabbing three of those spots with Star and Blues fighting for the fourth.
With that scenario, the Waverley Park stoush looms as very important for both teams.
No Junior though...
Star will be without their star back Junior Ngaluafe for the crunch game.
Ngaluafe is Auckland bound as he prepares to take on the British and Irish Lions as part of the Provincial Barbarians team next Saturday night.
The team will unite in Auckland today and then tomorrow will make the bus ride from Auckland to Whangarei.
It’s sad that the Lions tours now skips most of the provinces instead lining up against Super Rugby teams in the big centres.
If there were one or two people left who didn’t believe rugby is now ultimately driven by dollars and cents this tour has hammered that home.
But all that aside, Ngaluafe’s opportunity to basically play on the world rugby stage is something Southlanders should get excited about.
In his first year out of Kelston Boys’ High School in 2011, he made the trip south to ply his rugby trade.
It hasn’t been all plain sailing over the years but he’s stuck at it in Southland and last year Ngaluafe finally showed glimpses of what he could do at fullback for the Stags.
He now has a young family in Southland and should very much be regarded a Southlander.
Turning back the clock...
Today - and I presume into the small hours of tomorrow morning - Wyndham will recall one of the small eastern Southland town’s greatest sporting moments - the day they won the Galbraith Shield.
In 1997 the team led by the King of Wyndham, Davin Heaps, got their hands on Southland club rugby’s most prized trophy for the first and only time.
This weekend they are holding a reunion to remember the big win.
To get you in the mood I’ve delved into our archives and pulled out snippets from The Southland Times’ match report from the 27-18 win over Star in the 1997 final.
Here goes: It in all started in the opening minute of the game, Wyndham wing Peter Cairns charged down an attempted clearance from Andrew Flint and sprinted 20m to the tryline.
Star bounced back in the 15th minute when left wing Philip Ono sprinted on to a chip kick from Junior Tume to square the ledger.
Star hit the front for the only time in the 26th minute following a buildup which saw backs and forwards combining to put centre Benny Hodgkinson over for a try.
On the stroke of halftime, Star’s Brendon McDermott [now Sport Southland chief executive] missed touch with a kick, Wyndham ran the ball back and veteran first fiveeighth Mark Seymour did the rest to tie the scores at 10-all.
It took Wyndham 10min of the second half to break the deadlock, sustained pressure leading up to a second Cairns try for a 15-10 lead. That was trimmed to 15-13 at the end of the third quarter through a Colin Molloy dropped goal.
The game-breaking try came 10min later when Wyndham fullback Aaron Kimura controlled a kick ahead ‘‘soccer style’’ and showed pace on a 30m dash to the line, his conversion giving Wyndham a nine-point buffer.
Star had one last throw of the dice with forward power paving the way for a Daryl Batchelor try and a 22-18 scoreline with 3min to play.
With fans from both camps willing their teams on, Star won a lineout but under pressure it failed to clear from behind its goal line. Alert Wyndham flanker Peter Howe hammered home the final nail as the ball lay unclaimed.