Stars visiting to promote game

Charmaine McMenamin

BLACK Ferns star Charmaine McMenamin and former All Black Keven Mealamu will be in Gisborne for a week-long promotion of rugby.

McMenamin, the Black Ferns player of the year from the 2019 New Zealand Rugby Awards and New Zealand Rugby Players' Association international women's player of the year, will visit schools on Thursday and Friday next week.

McMenamin is due to promote wheelchair rugby at Ilminster Intermediate School, visit Gisborne Girls' High School and run a girls' rugby clinic at Lytton High School.

McMenamin is a loose forward for the Auckland Storm but she is from Gisborne and was named the 2019 Tairawhiti sportswoman of the year.

She and Mealamu will be in the city for the Poverty Bay Rugby Football Union's Rugby Awareness Week promotion, which starts on Monday.

Mealamu, who played 132 tests for the All Blacks, visited Gisborne less than a year ago to help launch the junior rugby season.

He also ran a presentation about rugby's values — a seminar that came out of New Zealand Rugby's review of respect and responsibility.

The four pillars of The Rugby Way were to be welcoming, be our best, play fair and be passionate, he told a Gisborne audience.

This time, Mealamu, a hooker in his playing days, will run a front-row clinic at Rugby Park on Friday evening, and a skills session for young players earlier in the day.

The week begins with skills workshops for rural school children in the rippa form of the game.

Poverty Bay union representatives will be heading out to rural schools for the rippa sessions.

Former test referee Bryce Lawrence will be in the city on Thursday to help develop referees and coaches.