Big crowd heads to night of Bay stars

Retired Black Caps cricketer Kyle Mills will be the guest speaker at the Hawke's Bay Sports Awards function in Taradale tonight.

A member of the World Cup team who finished second in March, Mills will be speaking to a crowd of 500. Sport Hawke's Bay's commercial manager Kevin Murphy said this will be the second biggest turnout in the history of the awards.

"The biggest, around 540, was in 2012 when Izzy Dagg won and we had the Rugby World Cup there," Murphy said.

The Pettigrew-Green Arena-hosted event will be Murphy's last official assignment for Sport Hawke's Bay before he starts his new job, event manager at Napier City Council, this month.

Plenty of kudos is expected to be heaped on Murphy as well as his former boss, Colin Stone, who left Sport Hawke's Bay in March to take on a community sport performance consultant role with Sport New Zealand.

In addition to Mills reflecting on the World Cup campaign, Hawke's Bay Magpies rugby coach Craig Philpott will give a rundown on his team's Ranfurly Shield success during an interview with MC Phil Gifford.

Philpott is a finalist for the coach award and his Magpies are among the favourites for the senior team award.

His boss, Hawke's Bay Rugby Union chief executive Mike Bishop, is a hot favourite for the administrator award in the wake of his union's hosting of the All Blacks' test against Argentina last year, the Ranfurly Shield success and the posting of a 17th consecutive surplus, a $242,048 one.

Several world champions are among the finalists for the awards. Rowers Emma Twigg and Fiona Bourke are among the finalists for the senior award, multiple world champion cyclist Regan Gough is the hot favourite for the junior award and Gough and his Central Hawke's Bay Cycling Club clubmate, Luke Mudgway, will be hard to beat in the battle for the junior team award after impressively winning gold in the Madison race at the Junior Worlds.

Gough's biggest feat during the judging period for this year's awards was helping the Kiwi elite men's pursuit team win gold at the February world championships in Paris. The fact he won a world elite title while still a junior could give him the edge in the battle for the supreme award.

Winners of the Senior, Junior, Masters, Junior Team and Senior Team awards become automatic finalists for the supreme award. If Gough was to win all three awards he would become the first to manage the feat since Hawke's Bay's 2013 Sportsperson of the Year, rower Thomas Jenkins.

Entertainment will include jazz music by Margot Wuts, her brother Tom Pierard and friends.