Leon Holden: How we won the Valley

Whangamatā Senior A's Kurt Jacobs. Photo / Jason Bartley

Whangamatā Rugby Club's planning for the 2020 Premier title started in August 2019.

Success always starts at the top and the Premier team was very lucky to have a great committee at the club and an enthusiastic Red and White club.

The club needed a squad of at least 30 players to withstand injuries and work commitments and the town had 20 committed players of Premier standard from 2019.

None were more desperate to win a title than veteran prop forward Kurt Jacobs, who began playing for the club in 2003 and was heading into his 18th season. Jacobs had endured years of the team yo-yoing between the 1st division and 2nd division and being on the wrong end of some big scores.

Fortunes took a turn for the better when players like halfback Kirtis McNaughton and lock Hayden Pardoe - an ex East Coast Heartland NPC player - came out of retirement to add to the numbers. Pardoe had played on and off over the years and, along with another veteran, Eli Savage, was a survivor of the 2006 grand final as a 19-year-old.

Originally a No 8, Pardoe packed down in the 2nd row and took on the role of the team's enforcer and most fierce defender.

The squad's numbers were rising but the team still needed another 4-5 players to reach that 30 mark, so attention turned to getting local boys back from other teams.

Eli Byles and Conner Emerson came home and were welcomed with open arms. The next piece of the puzzle was the return of Whangamatā Area School old boy Zach Clarke from North Harbour, where he had won two Premier titles with the Northcote club. Zach went on to captain the team from No 8 and lead the try-scoring stakes in the competition. In the 2006 season photo, Clarke was the ball boy.

Part of having a 30-man squad was that at least eight front rowers were needed and the club still only had 5-6 players for these positions. 2020 saw a couple of Premier-standard players arrive in town for work and hooker Scott Day was one of those, coming from Gladstone in the Wairarapa.

This added to the team's front-row stocks but still another prop was required to ensure the team could always compete and dominate up front, in all the games, all the time.

A call to an ex-colleague at London Wasps resulted in a young, 19-year-old tight prop sent to Whangamatā for a bit of an overseas experience. And what an experience it was.

Jordan Cordice arrived in Whangamatā for some overseas experience. Photo / Jason Bartley

Jordan Cordice only missed two games all season - the only two games the team lost all season. Cordice impressed with his maturity and soldiered through the grand final with a damaged eye socket.

So with the committee and then Red and Whites working hard, the squad was assembled and started training before Christmas. This carried on into 2020 and a team camp at Opoutere in February was the catalyst for the season ahead.

The team did no training, instead spent the day discussing why, what and how they wanted to achieve success in 2020.

The team came to the conclusion they wanted to inspire the youth of the town, pay homage to their elders and add to the mana of the club.

Covid-19 put the brakes on the start of the season in March but the team vowed to train even harder individually - and they did. When Covid-19 was halted in June the team reappeared even fitter than before and looked to ram home that advantage over other teams.

Whangamatā had a massive advantage over most other clubs with all but one of Whangamatā's players living and working in the town. Many clubs on the borders of first-division unions rely on travelling players and this proved exhaustive for those teams.

Whangamatā regularly had great numbers at training, twice a week. This meant competition for places was high and team spirit soared as players pushed and supported each other to unseen levels. As a result of this the standard of play continued to rise and rise and the rest, as they say, is history.