Wairoa in Focus: Could a northern Hawke’s Bay side win a premier club rugby title?

New Tapuae coach Paoraian Manuel-Harman. Photo / Paul Taylor

The Tapuae Sports Club is one of the oldest rugby clubs in Hawke’s Bay, but is suddenly looking at a possible record-breaking year as it spearheads a sporting revival in Wairoa.

The success, which has Wairoa clubs winning the first round unbeaten in both senior grades of Poverty Bay rugby, has also brought big growth in numbers across the motu in junior rugby, basketball and netball.

Promoted from division one, Tapuae made it six wins in a row in Poverty Bay premier rugby’s Lee Brothers Shield competition by beating Ngatapa 74-3 at Waikirikiri Park, Gisborne, and Wairoa Athletic kept their winning momentum going in division one with a 57-22 win over Waikohu at Te Karaka.

Also, Nuhaka maintained the division one second placing by beating Horouta 57-0 at Te Karaka, while Tapuae’s second team was beaten 46-12 by in their division one game, also in Gisborne, although Tthe apuae team have also had winning form.

That Tapuae have two senior sides is a new one on stalwart Wayne Hema, who says it is “kind of weird” having people coming looking to help when for so much of recent years the club has relied on a “backbone” of just a few stalwarts to keep things going.

No Wairoa side have won a men’s premier title in the wider Poverty Bay or Hawke’s Bay competitions.

But having been promoted after winning division one last year and drawing with Napier Pirate in a pre-season game at the Tapuae ground neighbouring the Affco freezing works, Tapuae had in succession beaten Gisborne sides Old Boys Marist 24-10, defending champions YMP Gisborne 17-14, Pirates 60-8 and High School Old Boys 55-20, and also had a default win over Waikohu leading up to Saturday’s triumph.

Tapuae’s success has brought fringe benefits, with 14 players named for the Poverty Bay Heartland team Town v Country trial, played on May 18 in Gisborne at the same time a Wairoa selection beat a Turanga (Gisborne) selection 83-0 in a match in Wairoa for players from division one teams.

Of them, seven have been named in the squad training for the traditional King’s Birthday match against Ngāti Porou East Coast, including captain, hooker, and Poverty Bay representative Ngahiwi Manuel, who is among those transferred back to Tapuae from Gisborne clubs. The others are fellow forwards Antonio Marewai, Harawira Kahukura, Duran Smith, Keanu Taumata and Wayne Hema, and back Iowana Filimone.

Tapuae have also had a big start in the Poverty Bay women’s competition, beating Horouta 74-0 in the opening match and following up with a 78-0 win over Waengapu Stallions in Wairoa on Sunday.

Hema says Tapuae also have four teams registered with about 130 children in junior rugby this season — more than double last year’s muster — and there are four netball teams, and four basketball teams.

Similar sports growth is being experienced at Raupunga, where YMP, who play senior rugby in Hawke’s Bay, have flourishing numbers in netball and basketball.

The growth follows the return of Paoraian Manuel-Harman, a former Wairoa College student who won an Auckland Premier rugby title while studying business and marketing at Auckland University, went to Melbourne for a while, returned to Wairoa and had played in about 10 games for Poverty Bay in Heartland championship rugby when the Covid shutdowns hit.

He then headed south, playing for Napier Pirate and Napier Old Boys Marist in Hawke’s Bay premier rugby, and for the Magpies in a Ranfurly Shield defence against Heartland champion South Canterbury in 2022, but returned home last year to work for Treaty post-settlement entity Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust’s commercial entity, lured by former teammate and new TToTW commercial CEO Aayden Clarke.

Manuel-Harman, now 29, had already helped Wairoa win sub-unions trophy the Barry Cup in 2022, and successfully defend it through the trophy’s centennial season last year, and turned to being player-coach at Tapuae.

He had a vision of bringing together those already committed to the green-and-black jersey with Wairoa players who had been playing for Gisborne clubs, some of them living in Gisborne and now travelling from Gisborne to Wairoa for training.

He realised fitness would be king, and by mid-January had players doing the near-unthinkable task of running up and down nearby Te Uhi hill that in past days might have seen off some of the players.

He also introduced some of the things from the comparatively foreign environment in which he had played in Auckland and Napier, including developing a leadership group, video match analysis and various other trappings.

Soon there was a culture of competition for places in the team and, while early days yet, the belief with which Manual-Harman had started, that Tapuae, having won promotion last year, could carry on and win the major title.

But, perhaps most important to Hema and Manuel-Harman and others such as co-captains George Whakatope and Tione Hubbard, and Manuel, who captained Wairoa to win the Barry Cup, and Manuel-Harman, who says it’s drawing in players who might have been regarded as troublesome “mischiefs” in town, and it’s galvanising a district in need of good news after the devastation from Cyclone Gabrielle, 16 months on.

As for Manuel-Harman, playing at fullback he was shaping as the top points-scorer until he was injured, putting him out of the game for at least three weeks.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.