Dog Year — Scaling the heights and
SO there he was, The Offsider, reflecting on the main moments in local sport from the Year of the (Earth) Dog which ended earlier this month.
Despite the massive diversification in Far North sport, the Age sportsbuster’s traditional focus remained on the big three: league, rugby and football, in terms of what they represented to their local communities and the following is his perspective on what went down.
Sure, it all seemed a bit belated with the sportsbuster forced to push his typically unwieldy review back a number of times because of lack of space in what had once seemed a quiet period for local sports.
But somehow, it also became even more relevant with Far North clubs in the those codes right now preparing to get a whole new campaign under way. Yep, Winter is coming.
Rugby
Eastern were back-to-back Mangonui senior club rugby champions, winning the Bell Shield with relative ease this time around after beating Kaitaia 31-10 in the grand final. However, it was Kaitaia who caused the biggest upset of the year by taking out traditional powerhouse Awanui in the semi-final.
Moerewa United Kawakawa were by far the most prolific Far North rugby team to feature in the Age pages for retaining the Bay of Islands championship (beating Kaikohe 24-18 thanks to a lastminute try from Rhys Te Nana, while Ohaeawai Okaihau won the McGarry Cup ‘bottom four’ 16-15 on finals day) and earning the right to contest a place in the Bayleys Premiership; a game which they eventually lost to deep disappointment.
The chance to earn promotion to Whanga¯rei-based competition wasn’t universally popular, with many shareholders concerned it would lead to the demise of the grassroots scene in the area. Kerikeri — who have been playing in Whanga¯rei for the past couple of seasons — were certainly not amused when such charges were once again directed their way during the ensuing conversation.
MUK also beat Awanui in a much anticipated North Zone final at Moerewa by a convincing 39-21 margin, with some consolation for the Mangonui union coming when Kaitaia downed Otiria in the bottom four final, 50-26. The other two games scheduled to be played on the day did not take place due to lack of interest, leading some commentators to note some clubs still hadn’t bought in to the North Zone concept.
Northland Rugby also introduced the Robbie Ball Cup inter-sub-union challenge, which saw Mangonui trample a surprisingly impotent Bay of Islands side into the Arnold Rae Park turf. Depending on your stance, the one-off match was either a shot in the arm for a once fiercely contested tradition in danger of being forgotten, or a token gesture from the NRU to show it was still committed to subunion rugby.
Elsewhere, the Bay of Islands completely dominated the age/ weight restricted Taniwha Shield tournament at Kaikohe, finishing with an emphatic 24-0 whitewash of the Whanga¯rei Grizzlies; the women’s game continued to Moerewa United Kawakawa lock Jordan Gillbanks attempts to break the Awanui defensive in the North Zone final at Moerewa.
develop significantly; and 2018 finished on a good note with the news Kaikohe had won the rights to host a Super Rugby pre-season match between the Blues and the Chiefs.
League
The 13-man game continued to go from strength to strength, with the
Tai Tokerau Rugby League organisation reporting more teams and players in the third season running since the cutting of ties with Rugby League Northland.
New side the Kaitaia-based Te Hiku o te Ika Mavericks’ total domination culminated in a comprehensive victory over the Kaikohe Lions in the grand final at Kaikohe, while Aupouri Repo beat the Pawarenga Broncos 22-14 in the curtain-raiser for the Championship Cup. Yet whispers are that the Mavericks may not be returning to defend their title this year . . .
Elsewhere, Muriwhenua claimed the TRL Iwi Origin title over Ngapuhi (played as a one-off instead of the three-match format used in the past) by one of the biggest margins in the series’ history, despite a conspicuous lack of buy-in from Muriwhenua clubs with the winning team mostly made up of Mavericks players.
The only Far North relevance in Rugby League Northland’s Premiership came from the Moerewa Tigers, who made the semi finals. Also notable was having newly crowned RLN premiers Otangarei Knights coming to the North and beating the Mavericks 28-10 in a landmark
Champion of Championsstyled match at Waipapakauri, which suggested both TRL and RLN were attempting to bury the hatchet.
Football
Kaeo Inter were the only Far North side to claim a league title in 2018, winning the Northland 2nd Division (NM2) championship for the second consecutive year, which also made them the only Far North team of any code to win a provincial trophy. With Kaeo having waltzed their way to two NM2 titles while virtually standing on their heads, coach Stefano Virgili recently announced he would be taking the team all the way to prem div football this season.
The other Far North side to claim silverware were Kerikeri Masters NM2, who beat Mangawhai NM2 2-1 in the Stafford Choat Bowl final; while Bay Cosmos NM3 and Kerikeri High School NWP both also made their respective finals days in knockout football.
International
Locals who continued to make an impression on the international stage — and were duly rewarded for their diligence with regular profiles in these pages — included the usual standouts, Panguru Kiwi Adam Blair, Kaikohe Black Ferns Sevens star Portia Woodman, Kawakawa All Black freshman Jack Goodhue (rugby) and Kerikeri sailor Blair Tuke. Woodman was the most prolific in making the Halbergs Award (alongside Tuke), as an outspoken critic of the NZRU’s lack of support for the women’s game, and earning local, national and international sports awards after picking up a Commonwealth Games gold medal and an IRB title with the Ferns.
Goodhue, meanwhile, helped Canterbury to its ninth Super Rugby title, and celebrated making the All Blacks, but was forced to miss several crucial games due to ill health. However, his call-up was enough to break Blair Tuke’s nineyear stranglehold on the Far North Sports Awards supreme title.
Other individuals to go on tour were: Kaitaia-born Killarney ‘Killa’ Morey as the first Far North player to make the New Zealand secondary schools netball team for an international tri-series in Australia; Kaitaia College duo Tegan O’Callaghan, the first person from New Zealand to compete at the 26th International Youth Rodeo in Oklahoma, and Arapo Kellner, who represented
"It was Kaitaia who caused the biggest rugby upset of the year by taking out traditional powerhouse Awanui in the semi-final."
New Zealand at the Youth Olympics in Argentina; Kaitaia ex-pat Mike De Ridder for completing the 205-mile Tahoe 200 Endurance Run in just under 97 hours; and Waiharara dartist Jo Steed who stood out for the New Zealand team at the WDF Asia Pacific Cup tournament in Korea.
Local teams who headed offshore in 2018 included the NZ Dutch Barbarians girls to play at two youth rugby sevens events in Europe, the Far North Netball Movement reps in an international tournament in Fiji, and local paddlers at the world waka ama champs in Tahiti — with a handful going on to make podiums, and two Ngapuhi U18 sides (boys and girls) who participated at two indigenous tournaments in Hawaii.
Honourable Mention
Elsewhere, other standout moments from 2018 included Liam Burke winning the ProSport Series (second-tier title) of the D1NZ national drifting championships and getting down on one knee on the victory dais to propose to long-term girlfriend Lasharn Datson, who happily accepted.
The Snapper Bonanza sold out for the first time, with Grant Dodunski from Te Puke reeling in the $30,000 main prize for an 8.945kg fish, the Te Houtaewa Challenge marathon returned to
"Closer to home, jetskis were officially banned from line-ups at Ahipara the moment someone started paddling in unassisted courtesy of a campaign driven by the Ahipara surfing community."
90 Mile Beach after years in the wilderness, while Sunset Beach A set a new course record in the 90 Mile Classic IRB challenge by completing the 88km parallel run from Scott’s Point to Ahipara in 2 hours 15 minutes.
The NRFL Division 2 season opener was hosted by Kerikeri FC at Waipapa — the first time the provincial team has ever played in the Far North (they eventually lost 3-0 to Takapuna); Kaitaia’s Charity Boxing Event was a sellout with plenty of local fighters on the card; and Quinita Hati from Moerewa won the New Zealand Boxing Commission National Female Lightweight (60kg) title in Taranaki.
The Herekino Bathurst Trolley Derby proved a real down-home delight, while the rise of Opononi teenage bowler Hoki Cassidy at club and centre level impressed all monitoring her progress.
Surfing
Surfing for The Offsider was, on the whole, forgettable in 2018 bar a golden run from September to early October.
This was evident in the way he increasingly resorted to running images from the WSL
The Offsider felt the Year of the Dog wasn’t the greatest for good surf but every now and then . . .
events he regularly covered rather than using his own shots from local breaks. Taupo Bay still coughed up some lovely images in March, as did the points at Ahipara in April.
Sealife seemed more aggressive, with plenty of headlines on two shark attacks, on a Kerikeri spearfisher and a surfer at Bayley’s Beach; both came not long after the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro surfing contest had to be shut down because of high shark activity.
On the world tour, The Offsider was stoked to see Gabriel Medina (G Brazil) crowned champion after winning the final event of the year in epic waves at Pipeline,
while the proliferation of artificial wave platforms like Kelly Slater’s Wave Ranch changed the face of surfing as many thought they knew it.
Closer to home, jet-skis were officially banned from line-ups at Ahipara the moment someone started paddling in unassisted courtesy of a campaign driven by the Ahipara surfing community.
It was another way for the locals to flex their collective muscle as they had done when Surf2Surf tried to set up a 24/7 wave cam and, previously, by turning down an application from an acclaimed American planker to run his fancy-pants longboard festival on the points.
The move to gain more local
control at Ahipara was also on show when iwi prevented quad bikes from riding all over the dunes along Tauroa Point by erecting a fence and stopping all outside joyriders from coming in one weekend.
Personal
Personal highlights for The Offsider from the past 12 months included being asked to be a judge for the Maori Sports Awards, which required him to work alongside a handful of highly influential and inspirational people like Kaitaia basketball promoter Manuera Riwai, and Bay of Islands netball exponent Maxine Shortland.
He also managed to get out and play a number of games — mostly in goal — for the Kaitaia second team in the Northland 3rd Division.
The team started strongly but gradually began to fall off the pace. That didn’t really matter; playing alongside good friends and talented youngsters was always a major highlight of any year for the Age sportsbuster.
Further accolades came in being voted in as president of the Kaitaia United AFC organisation where he oversaw a landmark merger between senior and junior factions, and affiliation to the governing body for the first time in the history of both organisations.
Otherwise, he was glad to leave the bullet-strewn corpse that was his Year of the Disquiet Dog behind him, twitching in the gutter; it was always predicted to offer challenge, agitation and movement for those of Dauntless Dragon ilk. The Year of the (Earth) Pig, on the other hand, was supposed to be of a much more triumphant and benevolent nature, but that’s only if you fall for that sort of mumbo jumbo, of course . . .
■ The Offsider is Age sportsbuster, Francis Malley. The above forms part of his annual multi-pronged review on the highlights of 2018. Other articles in the series included best quotes of the year (The first shall be last ,in January 15 edition) and the Underground Sports Awards (Part 1: the sporting achievements, ran on January 10; Part II: The cultural highlights on February 12). All were accompanied as per tradition by a series of his favourite unpublished images. Respond at sports@northlandage.co.nz