Unbeaten Napierwins the Ross Shield
Team also team received the Ron Pierce Trophy for best all-round performance and behaviour
Napier has regained the Ross Shield for supremacy in Hawke’s Bay primary schools rugby. The team completed the competition with a fifth win from five games by beating Hastings West 10-5 on the last day of the tournament at
Dannevirke’s Rugby Park.
The two sides shared the honours when Napier last got a hand on the trophy in 2018, and with Hastings West drawing twice earlier in the week, had another hand on the trophy before Saturday’s match.
Regular top side Hastings West finished the tournament with two wins, two draws and a defeat.
Hastings East beat Wairoa 53-12 to claim second place with three wins, and Central Hawke’s Bay, who led 17-3 before a home-side comeback, beat Dannevirke 31-24 in the last match, winning the country teams prize, the Life Members Salver.
As well as the shield, the Napier team received the Ron Pierce Trophy, for best all-round performance and behaviour. Dannevirke ended the tournament with one of the most sought-after prizes, with No 8 Te Tahi Rautahi winning the Taupo Trophy for player of the tournament, an award once won by Magpies and All Blacks star Israel Dagg.
Rautahi is the younger brother of Tawera Rautahi, who when the tournament was last held in Dannevirke in 2016 — also the venue for Napier’s last outright Shield triumph — earned the Jarrod Cunningham
Trophy and scholarship.
The Jarrod Cunningham Trophy this year recognised the performance of female players and was awarded to Napier No 8 Elley-May Taylor and Hastings West wing Keighley-Rein Araia.
The trophy was presented by Wairoa manager Danny Whatuira, who had been her sub-union’s first female Ross Shield player.