Ross Shield 2022 starts in Dannevirke

Home team Dannevirke carries country teams prize the Life Members Salver, which the sub-union won last year. Photo / Leanne Warr

Ross Shield school rugby hosts Dannevirke got the 120th anniversary off to a promising if not winning start as there beaten 12-0 by defending champion Hastings East at Rugby Park, Dannevirke, on Tuesday.

The champions scored the first try against the run of play and added the only other points, also in the first half of a game, which had the locals happy about the fight and spirit of their team, dominating territory and possession.

Hastings West beat Wairoa 71-0 in the day's second match, and Napier beat Central Hawke's Bay 42-7, CHB scoring a try and conversion from near the touchline in the second half to more support around the ground.

There are 132 players in the tournament, with 22 players in each squad, expected to get a run on each day, the opening day featuring clear blue skies and moderate temperatures.

"We couldn't have asked for a better day," said tournament committee chairman Bevan Ellison.

The second day on Wednesday is trophy day, with Wairoa and CHB playing for a shield in memory of Tino Amato, who died from a Premier grade match injury in 2002 and who had links to both area.

Dannevirke plays Napier for a cup in memory of Napier Ross Shield stalwart Steve Cottrell, and the two Hastings side play for a trophy in memory of Bill Mathewson, another Ross Shield stalwart.

There are five successive days of rugby, with the last on Saturday, but the tournament is played round-robin with no playoffs.

Prior to last year's triumph by Hastings East, the tournament had been won three times in a row by Hastings West from 2017 to 2019, but the 2020 event was cancelled because of the pandemic.

Napier last won in 2016, as defending champion the last time the tournament was played in Dannevirke.

Defending champion sub-union Hastings East proudly holds the Ross Shield in a parade through Dannevirke today ahead of the opening matches in this year's tournament. Photo / Leanne Warr

A Life Member's Salver for the country teams was introduced in 2012 and won by Dannevirke, now also the current holder.

The tournament was traditionally played among boys selected from schools in each of the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union's six sub-unions, until 1988, after the Taupō sub-union had become part of the King Country union.

Numerous players from the tournament have graduated from the tournament to become well-known professional players, notably from the 2001 tournament in Dannevirke where players included future All Blacks Israel Dagg and Zac Guildford and Super Rugby players Richard Buckman and Daniel Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was also a New Zealand under-20 world champion.

Among one of the others was Gemma Woods, one of the trailblazing first girls in the tournament and now a Hawke's Bay Tuis women's representative since 2009.