Tui get a day in the sun at Napier's McLean Park

Tui replacement halfback Kahlia Awa scores Hawke's Bay's third try in her Farah Palmer Cup debut last month. Photo / Ian Cooper

Hawke's Bay Tui women's rugby stars will get their day in the sun on McLean Park in Napier this week, thanks to an agreement for their national competition semi-final against Northland Kauri to go ahead despite the Hawke's Bay Home and Garden Show also being at the park.

An annual feature at McLean Park for at least 20 years (apart from Covid-19 intervention), the Home and Garden Show is on Friday-Sunday, focused on the Rodney Green Centennial Events Centre, the rear of the Harris Stand and Latham St gates, opening at 10am daily, with a 5pm close on Friday and Saturday and a 4pm close on Sunday.

Targeting promotion to the Farah Palmer Cup NPC Premier Division, the Tui were runner-up in the six-team Championship Division round-robin, claiming home advantage for a semi-final against Northland on Saturday, starting at 11.35am.

The Hawke's Bay Rugby Union announced today there will be free entry to the game, but only via the No. 4 gate near the Nelson Cr end of Morris St, and spectators will be confined to the Graeme Lowe Stand and its near-end of the Morris St embankment, with no access between the rugby and the Home and Garden Show.

The gate will open at 11am, and the game will also be televised live on Sky Sport.
Union CEO Jay Campbell said: "It's [a] huge thanks to the Napier City Council for going the extra mile to make this game happen, given the constraints in and around the park this weekend."

"This provides a fantastic opportunity for our Tui to play at the home of Hawke's Bay Rugby for the first time in 2022," he said.

Team coach Blair Cross said the team appreciated the effort put in to enable the Tui to have such an important match at McLean Park, and hoped that would benefit the team in its continued development after having two weeks off.

The Tui, targeting a third championship final place for a third time in a row, opened the season with a 22-44 home-match loss to the ultimately unbeaten Otago Spirit, then in away games beat North Harbour 32-5 and Northland 32-17, followed by 45-15 win over Taranaki in Napier. They got shared points after a game against Tasman had to be cancelled because of the flooding emergency in the Nelson region.

In 2021, the Tui also played Northland at McLean Park, blowing a 31-22 lead with 19 minutes to go and being beaten 46-31.

Otago plays North Harbour at Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin, on Sunday afternoon in the second semi-final, having beaten the Harbour 38-22 in their earlier match at North Harbour Stadium.

The final will be played on the weekend of September 9-10, with the winner expected to be promoted to the Premier division for 2023.

The Bay was beaten 24-20 by Otago in the 2019 final and, with no final in 2020, was beaten 55-12 by Manawatū in last year's showdown.