On The Up: Changing times as YMP build new rooms at Raupunga

YMP (left) and Clive (right) run out for their game in Raupunga on May 17, the first teams to use the new changing rooms, YMP's first in 60 years of rugby. Photo / Doug Laing

There are changing times in Raupunga, where sports club YMP finally has its own changing rooms.

The two-room facility was built by club members in just two weeks, says chairman William Culshaw, and is named “Poutama” to mark the first step in developing the club’s first real home in 60 years.

Six poles are in place for floodlighting the rugby ground off Putere Rd, just off State Highway 2 midway between Napier and Wairoa, and Culshaw says clubrooms are among the targets in the next few years.

Over the years, visiting teams were hosted after-match about 10km away at the Mohaka Hotel, before it burnt down, at Te Huki Marae, atop the rise overlooking the ground, and, when it too was burnt in a fire, up the road to Kahungunu Rd, players often stopping to shower at home en route.

And then there were the trees, from which the branches afforded some shelter for changing before and after the game, along the Putere Rd boundary.

But they’re gone, stalwart Gerald (Jed) Aranui recalling: “When they took the trees away, they took away our changing rooms.”

The honour of opening the changing rooms went to Aranui just before YMP and Clive old-stagers The Movement ran out for their Hawke’s Bay Senior 3 rugby game on May 17, the culmination of what was only YMP’s second club day, with five children’s grade rugby matches and three netball games also played.

The younger YMP ran in 11 tries, all but one converted, in winning 75-0 and maintaining an unbeaten record in 2025.

But Clive, their bus arriving just in time for the formalities, quickly got over the demise, proud to have been the first visitors to use the new rooms.

The facilities were supported by the Ngāti Pahauwera Development Trust, with chairman Toro Waaka also present for the opening.

YMP’s win took them to the Senior 3 first-round final, which Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union community rugby manager Sean Davies said is expected to be played in June.

It brings back memories of the club’s Senior 3 championship win in 2017.

Meanwhile, Wairoa side Tapuae have claimed the Poverty Bay women’s title, with wins in the first games of a three-match series against the only other side, Gisborne YMP.

Their men’s team were beaten by Gisborne YMP for the second time this season in a 39-0 result in Wairoa.

But the club’s top side’s first home defeat in three years still keeps the green-and-blacks in second place in the Poverty Bay Premier competition which they won last year, going unbeaten.

Wairoa teams continued a domination of the Poverty Bay men’s Senior 1 competition, Mahia beating Gisborne High School Old Boys 57-0, and Nūhaka beating Gisborne YMP’s Second XV 31-20, both in Gisborne.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.