A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
It hasn't been done before.
Many club ball teams have started a game with four players and, their fifth player having arrived within five minutes, gone on to win. Teams have also finished games with fewer than five players on the floor and won.
But no team in the modern era ever started a club ball final with five players and won it.
In the absence of Shay Waikawa, Ngati Porou — aiming for a third consecutive title — have to do that. And if they can beat Lytton High School with a skeleton crew tonight, they may well be elevated from powerhouse status to be the best women's club team in GBA history.
Bronya McMenamin led Ngati Porou to three consecutive women's titles from 2014 to 2016 with wins against the GBA under-17s (61-29), Mackeys (69-37) and YMP (42-29).
The Adrian Sparks-coached Campion College knocked them out of the 2017 semifinals 35-23 but Ngati Porou beat then-champions Lytton (79-59) the following season and on August 13 last year, 56-40.
McMenamin and her powerful unit (Ngati Porou having never lost a final) refuse to be distracted by as trivial a concern as mere subs.
“We're looking forward to tonight's game; the opposition in this final being a school team — something cool I haven't encountered in club ball before — it's guaranteed to be fast-paced,” said the five-time winning Ngati Porou captain, who was also in the GBA u19s who won the title in 2013.
“It goes to show the calibre of the players — the talent in Gisborne — and it's also great to see a B Grade in the competition, so that people can have fun and try things. I think that's helped to grow the game.”
Amoe Wharehinga was a Koru under-16 representative two years ago. She has what her predecessor as Lytton captain, Jayda Waititi-Leach, has: a fierce competitive streak
“Ngati Porou are tough but we can make this game close if we play hard enough defence and execute our plays — it's important that we finish,” Wharehinga said.
“Piper (Donaldson) can take it to the hoop, Jody (Tarsau-Walters) sets the tone defensively, and Alicia(Kepa) and I will control the floor for us.
“We need to keep cool heads, keep our composure and play to our strengths.”
In her second stint as Lytton girls' coach, deputy principal Marama Henwood is pleased to see the team that she and Amoe Tarsau have worked alongside make the final. It was under Tarsau that Jayda Waititi-Leach's LHS crew were victorious in 2017.
Of the current team, Henwood said: “These girls had a good skill-set from Week 1 but once we'd got back into a groove with court-time and a tiny bit of guidance from the sideline, self-belief also emerged. We've got a good team culture — we don't rely on any one person; different people have stepped up in these past six weeks.
“Tactically, we want to push the ball. Last time around, we let Ngati Porou set the pace and if you let them set up on defence, it's very hard to penetrate.
“When we run, when we play confidently, we're at our best.”
Wharehinga has finished some difficult plays this season, while Donaldson is strong at the rim. They have the capacity to lead against a team whose reputation and status in women's club basketball history is almost unrivalled.
McMenamin, who played for the Koru u14s as an 11-year-old in 2009 — and teammate Tuipulotu-Collier, who played power forward off the bench for the national champion Waikato u23s in 2017 — put up 15 and 10 points respectively in the Ngati Porou Week 3 victory over Lytton. These two, and Tiara Weir, give Ngati Porou three strong scoring options under the basket and few women's teams pass and cut (or execute basketball plays such as screen-roll) better than the current champions.
Only the Ray Noble-coached Horouta have done so in club ball here in a more clinical, structured way.