Stories to be told 40 years after historic Hawke's Bay club-rugby win

The home of Hastings rugby club Tamatea, where stories will be told at the weekend of the club's most famous achievement 40 years ago. Photo / Warren Buckland

An unlikely Hawke's Bay club rugby championship triumph of 40 years ago will be recalled as Nash Cup and Maddison Trophy holder Taradale plays Hastings club Tamatea on Saturday.

But the celebration isn't connected with any of the many triumphs in the history of the Taradale club, which will mark its 125th anniversary later this month.

Rather, the focus will be on the sole Maddison Trophy win by Tamatea, a club itself with a history dating back over a century, to its foundation in 1903.

Tamatea attracted nationwide notoriety when it won the silver oval-balled trophy in 1982, in what was then a Napier-Hastings round-robin competition without playoffs, and with a huge following as coach Dick Hawea progressed a young team, many of whom had already tasted triumph in the Under-19 and Under-21 grades.

Home games at the now long-gone Nelson Park, Hastings, attracted crowds sometimes estimated at up to 5000 people, as the team went through the season went through two 10-team rounds almost unbeaten, winning both the Nash Cup (for the first round), and the Maddison Trophy.

Tamatea is holding its annual club day at Bill Matthewson Park, Hastings, with eight children's games from 9am, a Senior 3 match against Clive team The Movement starting at 2.45pm on the No 2 field at 2.45pm, and the premier match against Taradale on the No 1 field starting at 3pm.

Club chairman Stewart White said that coincidentally, the opposition for the two main games was particularly apt – Taradale being the reigning holders of the two top trophies and, he thought, the only club to have beaten Tamatea in 1982, and Clive's team including several players whose major playing history had been with Tamatea.

One club stalwart, Fred Carroll - a player from a generation earlier - recalled the Tamatea triumph in 1982 was part of a big year for Maori rugby generally, with both the Te Aute College 1st XV and the Māori All Blacks touring Wales.

More widely it is remembered as the year Hawke's Bay - with Tamatea star and former New Zealand Colt Brian Morris at first five-eighths - was beaten 13-12 both in challenging Wellington for the Ranfurly Shield and by the touring Wallabies.