There's also big interest in the next grade, Senior 1, where three of the four teams are playing for the right to promotion to the Premier grade at the start of next season, including Havelock North and Napier Pirate, both related in a competition reformatting process at the end of the Nash Cup competition.
All six of those clubs have won the Maddison Trophy at least once in the past 12 years, while there are big expectations in Dannevirke where Aotea will be aiming to win the town's first place in the Hawke's Bay Premier competition since 2006.
Aotea club captain Bryan Te Huki says the side have to first win their semifinal at Rugby Park, Dannevirke and adds opponents Napier Old Boys Marist Reserves, who are not eligible for promotion, "will be no pushovers".
"But our guys are up to the challenge," he says.
Napier Pirate must win their semifinal to get promotion, but if Aotea are beaten they will still have the chance to be promoted if Pirate are beaten in the other semifinal, based on having beaten Pirate 27-17 earlier in the competition.
Te Huki says it's too early to make the decision whether the club would accept promotion.
The reshaping of the upper competitions has led to the introduction of two new trophies - the Hepa Paewai Memorial Cup for the Division 1 final, in memory of a 1960s Ranfurly Shield era halfback and Havelock North and Aotea stalwart, and the Tom Mulligan Cup, the Division 2 prize marking the service of a union life member and former chairman and NZRFU council member.
Finals day organiser Gary Macdonald says McLean Park is the "hallowed" ground of Hawke's Bay on which most players would never get the chance to play, so clubs are welcoming the opportunity.
In past years finals had been played at various parks, with the number allowed to be played on international venue McLean Park limited by the Napier City Council.
Requirements amid the Covid-19 alerts last year that matches be played at enclosed grounds to limit and distance crowds enable three matches to be played on one day at the park, and ultimately council's consent for this year's finals to all be at the park.
As it tries to make the club finals something special, the union is offering the use of some corporate boxes, which otherwise wouldn't be pressed back into service until a week after the finals, when the Hawke's Bay Magpies defend the Ranfurly Shield against Ngati Porou East Coast on July 24.
Meanwhile, Manawatu Rugby Division 2 champions Dannevirke Sports are matching the Aotea club efforts in making it one of the most successful years ever in Southern Hawke's Bay club rugby, despite the unique situation of the town's two clubs playing in different unions.
Dannevirke Sports, which switched affiliation from Hawke's Bay to Manawatu in 2007, are going for a third Manawatu second division championship title in a row and after winning first-round honours earlier in the season top the ladder again with just a match against Massey at Massey University to go on Saturday before their semifinal a week later.
Coach Nigel Castles said the top club in the grade could "go up" if it believed it had the resources, but a "typical country club" of farmers and townspeople the team are "happy where we are."
Between the two clubs there are four teams at senior or colts level, which Castles says is probably better than most towns of similar size.
It's also a big weekend in Northern Hawke's Bay rugby, with both current Wairoa town clubs, Athletic and Tapuae, in the Poverty Bay union's Senior 1 final in Gisborne.
Tapuae won both games between the clubs earlier in the season.
Athletic stalwart Toby Taylor, now 56, pulled on the jersey once this season and played with his four sons as the club tested its prowess against Poverty Bay Premier club Ngatapa earlier this year, and has a son also playing in the hopeful Napier Pirate team in Hawke's Bay.
There are currently just five teams in Poverty Bay Premier grade and six in Senior 1, but Taylor still holds hope that there could be a local "home" competition to help finish what is otherwise a short season.
But he accepts it's unlikely, with just three teams – Athletic, Tapuae and Raupunga-based Hawke's Bay club side YMP- having been available for a local competition that he hoped would have been played early this year. There was little prospective interest at a meeting that was called for last weekend.
Wairoa is however being allocated a challenge for the Barry Cup, a challenge trophy once
competed among sub-unions from Wairoa north through Poverty Bay and East Coast.
He says Wairoa could assemble a strong team of "Wairoa" players in the local sides and club teams in Hawke's Bay and Poverty Bay.
"While we are still going to have a challenge for the Barry Cup," he said, "we still need to have some rugby in Wairoa. We can't just go into a Barry Cup challenge without any club rugby."
"We used to play 30 games a year," he lamented. "We've just had our first frost ... but the rugby's all over in 14 weeks."
