Opinion: Will Kamo Hawks split work for Northland's women's rugby programme?

While women's rugby in Northland faced its struggles in 2019, hopefully the move to split the Kamo Hawks team into two will benefit this year's season. Photo / File

I think the Northern Advocate's sport section has made its position on women's rugby in Northland abundantly clear.

The amount of talent this region holds in the women's oval ball game is unprecedented and was left criminally untapped for a number of years. Thankfully, the wheels in the Northland women's rugby machine are moving faster than ever after a stellar 2019.

Senior and age-group club competitions were launched with varying degrees of success, but it all built towards a maiden Farah Palmer Cup (FPC) campaign for the Northland Kauri, who ended up in a championship semifinal against Hawke's Bay.

Even though they didn't progress to the final, Northland had already made their long-awaited mark on the domestic women's rugby scene with the help of a number of experienced players.

Bron 'Horse' Hames, a powerhouse of Otamatea rugby, was a good leader of the Kamo Hawks team last year. Photo / File

Current Black Fern Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate was integral to the team's mana last year and as captain, she led the younger players well together with New Zealand rugby league player Krystal Murray and former Black Fern Victoria Subritzky-Nafatali.

Now, the training wheels are off as Northland's club teams began their preparations for another season for their senior and age-group players.

The success of last year's senior club competition could be described as "mixed". While it started off with a hiss and a roar, the season was marred by a heavy injury toll, defaulted games and inflexible rules.

Looking back, all of the above should have been accepted as normal first season speed bumps after about five years without a road to drive on.

Fortunately, the season ended well with a competitive final between frontrunners Kaikohe and Te Rarawa with the former emerging as victors.

Now it seems the competition will grow in 2020 as the Kamo Hawks, an amalgamation of players from the Kamo and Otamatea rugby clubs, will split to form two teams.

On the surface, it's a good sign. More teams means more players getting to play at the highest regional level and it will give FPC coaches, Cheryl Smith and Susan Dawson, a deeper talent pool to work with ahead of their second campaign.

However, your opinion on this decision will most likely be dictated by whether your lean towards optimism and pessimism, a daily struggle for yours truly.

The optimist in me says that upon hearing news of another team in the Whangārei area, players will flock to the upcoming musters with gusto, ready to learn from some of the best in the game.

However, the pessimist in me says another year as a combined team may have been exactly what players, managers, coaches and administrators needed to ensure their on and off-field development was sufficient enough to go it alone.

It seems travel is the main motivator behind the Otamatea players wanting to leave the Kamo Hawks partnership. Financially, it makes a lot of sense, especially if it means we would have players decide against playing for such reasons.

Furthermore, to have the Otamatea Rugby Club cultivating a successful women's rugby team could be what's needed for the club, which is more determined than ever to promote a family-first culture after some times of struggle with its men's teams.

Nevertheless, it's not often the saying, "learn how to walk before you can run", doesn't hold up.

Has Northland's women's rugby programme learned to walk yet? I'd be surprised if anyone was 100 per cent confident it had, but I look forward to be proven wrong when the season starts in May.