A crisis: New props for crucial Hawke’s Bay Magpies game against Auckland

Manahi Goulton, prop from Dannevirke club Aotea, will make his Magpies debut at McLean Park on Thursday night. Photo / Hawke's Bay Rugby

Dannevirke rugby club Aotea has its first Hawke’s Bay Magpie in 37 years as head coach Brock James brings in some young guns to solve a front-row crisis for Thursday’s pivotal NPC match against Auckland.

Former Hastings Boys’ High School and Waikato Chiefs Under 20 prop Manahi Goulton, who has been training with the squad for several weeks, makes his debut, in the starting line-up.

The last player chosen from Aotea to play for the Magpies was wing Derek Brooks, who had 29 games in the 1980s.

Goulton, 22, was first noticed as a Peterhead School prop and hooker for Hastings West at the 2015 Ross Shield Hawke’s Bay primary schools tournament.

He played Hawke’s Bay premier rugby in 2021 for Hastings club Tamatea, and left to study engineering at the University of Waikato, making the Waikato NPC wider training squad, and returned to the Bay this year to work in Dannevirke, and “play with mates”.

With two games on McLean Park in the past, as about a 10-year-old Flaxmere schoolboy playing a curtain-raiser to a Magpies match and this year in Aotea’s Hepa Paewai Trophy final loss to Central, he said he’s too caught up in the “excitement” of playing in front of family and friends to worry about stage fright in Napier.

The shortage of fit props has also resulted in a call for 23-year-old former Australia Under 20 prop Remsy Lemisio, who arrived in the Bay on Monday and is named in the reserves.

He played in 18 matches for Northland in 2023-24, and six for the Utah Warriors in this year’s American MRL, with Magpie Frank Lochore, coached by former Magpie and All Black Greg Cooper.

James listed a catalogue of players who’ve vacated the number 1 and 3 jerseys in 2025, from before the first NPC game on August 3, including losing two more from last Friday’s 38-24 loss to Taranaki in New Plymouth.

The early retirement of Joel Hintz was followed by injuries to Isaac Salmon and Tim Farrell pre-season match, and the list now also includes New Zealand Māori, All Blacks XV and New Zealand Under 20 and Hurricanes Super Rugby player Pouri Rakete-Stones, 2024 NZ Under 20 player Joshua Smith, and Tongan international Apikotoa.

Hooker and co-captain Jacob Devery is also nursing an injury, while in the backs centre Nick Grigg is also recovering, but first five-eighths Harry Godfrey is back again, having missed the last two matches with injury.

On the same ground last year, Godfrey kicked a dramatic last-second conversion for the Magpies to beat Auckland 36-35.

The Hawke’s Bay Magpies team for the NPC match against Auckland at McLean Park, Napier, on Thursday, starting at 7.10pm:

Hadlee Hay-Horton, Kianu Kereru-Symes, Manahi Goulton; Isaia Walker-Leawere, Tom Parsons (captain); Miracle Fai’ilagi, Sam Smith; Devan Flanders; Folau Fakatava, Harry Godfrey; Neria Fomai, Le Roux Malan, Anaru Paenga-Morgan, Jonah Lowe, Zarn Sullivan. Reserves: Valentino Taito, Nik Patumaka, Remsy Lemisio, Geoff Cridge, Frank Lochore; Ereatara Enari, Lincoln McClutchie, Lukas Ripley.

Doug Laing has been a reporter based in Napier for 38 years, covering most aspects of news and sports, including rugby.