Great year for the Coast

HONGI FOR CHAMPION CAPTAIN: Ngāti Porou East Coast skipper Sam Parkes accepts the Heartland Championship's Lochore Cup from Frank Lochore (grandson of All Black great Brian Lochore) and David Lochore (son of Brian Lochore and father of Frank) after the final in Ruatoria. Picture by Paul Rickard

This was a big year for Ngāti Porou East Coast rugby.

Some 23 years after their 18-15 victory over Poverty Bay in the third division final at Whakarua Park in Ruatoria, 22 years after they retained that title 35-21 at North Otago's Centennial Park, and a decade on from their come-from-behind 29-27 Meads Cup win against defending champions Wanganui, the Kaupoi (“Cowboys”) beat Mid-Canterbury 25-20 to lift the Lochore Cup on October 22.

That defeat of Mid-Canterbury was the Sky Blues' third win in a national championship final at home.

In 1999-2000 Joe McClutchie and Wirihana Raihania were front and centre, and in 2012 Ngarimu Simpkins and Te Rua Reihana Tipoki were player-coach and captain respectively. In 2022, 14-test All Black Hosea Gear was head coach and Kaupoi No.1062 Sam Parkes was skipper.

Gear completed his third year at the tiller last season.

“To win one game in 2021 was a huge challenge yet in 2022, we won six of 10 Heartland games without the captain of the previous four years, Hone Haerewa, and playmaker Te Rangi Fraser,” Gear said.

First five-eighth Carlos Kemp steered the ship with growing confidence, while the development of loan players wanting to compete at a high level inspired the Coast boys, he said.

Halfback Parkes beat two powerful No.8 forwards — Semi Vodosese of Whanganui and South Canterbury's Siu Kakala — to be the Heartland Championship's Player of the Year and first winner of the Ian Kirkpatrick medal, so named for the former All Black captain, back-rower and patron of New Zealand Rugby.

“Last year we created a good work ethic,” Parkes said.

“The reason we were successful this year is that the boys hit the road and got fit.

“It was an honour to be in the team, to be captain, because just playing was unlikely as I was skippering yachts in Croatia during the club rugby season.

“But Hosea and I met in Venice, went for dinner and the seed to play was planted.

“Right now, the team goals are to not eat too much over the break and go for the odd run.”

Kemp — a Napier Boys' High School first 15 member in 2020 — was NPEC Kaupoi Player of 2022, Jorian Tangaere won the Players' Choice Award and Ngarohi McGarvey-Black was the Richard Crawshaw Memorial All Blacks Sevens Player of the Year.

Kemp, who turns 20 tomorrow, said: “Playing for the Coast was an experience I'll never forget in terms of friendships made with my lifelong brothers. The history we made will be remembered for as long as our legacy survives.”

The occasion that was the Lochore Cup final was not lost on outstanding 34-year-old referee Michael Winter, of Waikato.

“It was an amazing atmosphere,” he said.

“You could feel the energy at the ground because in Heartland rugby the fans are so close to the action.

“For me, it was about knowing how special the day was, acknowledging it, yet still reffing as I had all season. The score was tight throughout, with two lead changes. Both teams scored good tries, played good footy. For so many reasons, that final was memorable, as was the support for rugby.”

Poverty Bay beat NPEC 46-12 in Ruatoria to retain the PJ Sayers Cup on June 4, Queen's Birthday Weekend, but the Coast pipped the Bay 12-10 in Round 4 of the Heartland Championship at Gisborne's Rugby Park on September 10.

It was the visitors' 42nd win. Poverty Bay have won 126, and five games have been drawn.

As a result of the championship match, NPEC took the Anaru “Skip” Paenga Memorial Shield and retained the Bill Osborne Taonga. On September 17, with the 29-27 win at home against West Coast, the Coast added to that the Arthur Wickes Memorial Trophy.

It is delicious to fans of NPEC that in the 48-year-long rivalry — the Coasties versus the Coasters — the Southerners have won 16 and the underdogs, 15 and closing in.

Next season the Coast will defend — as if their lives depend on it — the Bill Osborne Taonga, named for the immediate past New Zealand Rugby president and All Black, and the Skip Paenga Memorial Shield. And even now Gear may be laying plans to seize the Sayers Cup.

It may be that former NZ army captain Hakarangi Tichborne, the NPEC loosehead prop who came off the reserves bench for the NZ Heartland 15 that beat the NZ Police 84-14 at Owen Delany Park in Taupō on November 5, was underestimated by some.

Gear felt that perhaps the Coast's biggest improvement as a union was in the women's game. Their club final drew as big a crowd as the men, he said, and so to play one final after the other at the same venue, on the same day (if it were practical and a popular concept) would create a spectacle for families and supporters.

This year LeRoy Kururangi took over as chief executive from the immensely capable and popular Cushla Tangaere-Manuel.

Along with other committed advocates for small provincial unions such as outgoing Poverty Bay chief executive Josh Willoughby (now NZR provincial union partnership manager), NZ Māori Rugby Board member Douglas Jones and Wairarapa-Bush chairman Tony Hargood, Tangaere-Manuel had rolled up her sleeves for the good of the national game during a critical period.

Former NPEC president Bailey Mackey was this month elevated from NZR board member to co-deputy chair (as lofty a rugby post as any Coast notable has occupied) with Professor Farah Palmer.

Tangaere-Manuel is now the Māori programme manager for NZR, former NPEC chairman Campbell Dewes is NPEC president, and New Zealand Māori Rugby Board member Val Morrison has become Coast chairman. The progression of people with talent, experience, a feel for the game at grassroots level, and knowledge of its health and importance through the administrative ranks is as significant as any skills-session or win on the field, and is potentially of greater long-term benefit to Coast rugby.

The NPEC under-15 girls began their Hurricanes tournament at Playford Park in Levin with wins against Manukura 22-5, Cullinane 32-10 and Wainuiomata 26-22 on Day 1.

On Day 2, the Shaun Murtagh-coached Coast lost 25-7 to St Mary's but beat Wairarapa-Bush 30-10 and finally won the third-fourth playoff 29-10 against fit, tough, skilful Wainuiomata.

The NPEC u16 boys' Division B campaign began with a 30-12 loss to Wairarapa-Bush in their first game at the NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport in Wellington on October 3. They then beat Whanganui 22-19 — their first win at that level in seven years — and lost another nail-biter, 24-18, to Hawke's Bay.

Club rugby on the Coast roused passions just as fierce as that for the union's Sky Blue jersey.

On July 23, the 300 at George Nepia Memorial Park, home of Pango Productions Waiapu in Rangitukia, Hugh Tibble's women beat their guests, the Hikurangi Mountain Maidens, 36-5 to claim the Hamoterangi Cup.

On the same perfect day for open, running rugby, Tihirau Victory Club beat the Waiapu men 39-17 for the Rangiora Keelan Memorial Shield.

Doone Harrison, a great stalwart of Hikurangi and NPEC rugby, mentored the Mountain Maidens and his outfit — through fetcher Jade Tangaere-Tuhua, co-captain with first-five Katerina Ngarimu — struck first. Yet Waiapu led 19-5 at halftime and centre Cheyenne Babbington-Ngerengere, who scored a hat-trick of tries, was their MVP (most valuable player) in the final.

Hikurangi halfback Jody Waru was MVP for The Maunga on what had been a great occasion. The Mountain Maidens fielded 36 players over five weeks. Player retention and development for Hikurangi, in the third year of their women's arm, will be crucial to the team's future.

Waiapu fought hard at Te Kura Mana Māori o Whangaparaoa but their hosts, TVC, won the men's club rugby showpiece by a margin of 22 points to complete a perfect season.

The Victory Club's eight consecutive wins in a one-round competition was a tremendous achievement: they won four in a row at home to end their campaign. That run included a 20-15 extra-time victory over Ruatoria City in the 1 v 4 semifinal.

Waiapu, as the third-ranked team, beat 2021 champions Pango Productions Uawa 38-17 at Tolaga Bay to make the grand stage.

TVC first-year coaches Haimona Waititi and Tutere Waenga did a top job.

The club's first and last title before this year was in 2017 under Whetu Haerewa, who started at hooker in that 100-minute epic five years ago, and Waenga's on-field presence at centre was just as influential.

In the 2022 final, Waenga scored the first try, while teammate and first-five Ngarangi Haerewa kicked three conversions and a penalty goal to be their MVP.

Loosehead prop Jody Tuhaka and fetcher Willie Bolingford shared that distinction for Waiapu.

The loss of Kaupoi No.718 Robert Tuari, twin to Kaupoi No.745 James, at the Ruatoria City club centenary match — curtain-raiser to the Lochore Cup final at Whakarua Park — was heart-breaking. The aroha and respect expressed and experienced by all present on that day, October 22, was as timely and poignant as is best at such a time in any community.

The loss in a diving accident of the most durable Sky Blue of all and Kaupoi No.569, 115-cap titan Enoka Morgan Waitoa, on December 29, 2021, comes to mind at this time of renewal in the way that long years link people and places with tears, joy and events.

Whether that involves the gathering of food from the sea for family and friends over the festive season or plots for returning the Barry Cup to an East Coast sub-union — from current holders Waikohu — yet to be hatched, these things are part of life on the Coast. Morgan Waitoa was a great man, a family and community man, and an awesome force whether with ball tucked under arm or not.

The loss last week of NPEC representative, Hick's Bay and Kawakawa Combined's Herewini Reedy, a member of the first East Coast u16 team — who won the Central Regions Tournament in 1972 and 1973 — was as keenly felt.

The details of Hikurangi's 84-5 win against brave Tokomaru Bay United on June 8, 2019, at Kahuitara in the Maunga's centenary match — home team captain and openside flanker Tanetoa Parata's 100th game for Te Maunga — may one day be lost to recall of fact, subject to nostalgic reflection.

The fantastic vibe around the NPEC women's representative team Hamoterangi — with regular women's club rugby on the Coast still in its infancy — saw losses to Eastern Bay of Plenty 29-7, Thames Valley 22-10, Wanganui 34-19, Tūranga Mana Wāhine 57-3 at Rugby Park on September 10 and King Country 65-10 away run like water off a duck's back before the 82-12 win at home against a depleted but courageous Eastern Bay of Plenty crew.

The team spirit within the side was superb: veterans strong enough to return from injury — such as Shirley Mullany-Mato, assistant coach to Whetu Haerewa — ensured that lively, energetic halfback Nikau Teddy and others never lacked for inspiration.

If this year in review reveals anything, it is that rugby is in a better place now on the Coast than it was before Covid-19. No one can doubt that a full two-round competition will return, and that both the Kath McLean Memorial Cup for the first round of men's club rugby and the Jury Harrison Memorial Trophy for Round 2, last held aloft by TVC captain Moana Mato in 2021, will be the object of desire again.