Te Puna's Te Aihe Toma keeps an eye on his opposition. Photo / Andrew Warner
Te Puna Rugby Club is about to enter it's centenary year with a trophy that will be on display with pride.
The club's sevens team were named the winners of the open men's division of the 2018 Baywide Club Rugby Sevens after beating Rangataua in a hard-fought match at Pāpāmoa's Gordon Spratt Reserve on Saturday afternoon.
Co-coached by Hamish Boyce and Lance MacDonald, the side narrowly beat their rivals 12-10 in their last play of the final match to take the Sir Gordon Tietjens Trophy.
There were nine Bay of Plenty Clubs competing for the trophy, previously held by Tauranga Sports who were unable to field a team this year due to injury. Other winners included defending champions Rangiuru, who beat Opotiki to take the women's division and the Exia Edwards Trophy; Te Teko claiming the title of Te Manawa Whenua winners after winning their final against Waikite and Mount Maunganui taking out the Tight 5 division.
Boyce says the win is a great start to their centenary planning and organising and they will be looking forward to the trophy being put on display during their celebrations next year, hopefully with others in tow.
"It's awesome to kind of get the trophy in the cabinet eyeing our centenary next year, so it's 100 years for the club so that's going to be a nice little kind of trophy we can show off when we have our centenary," Boyce says.
"Hopefully we get a couple more in there but it's a nice start."
He says the weekend's competition was strong with a good turnout of players and supporters proving "Bay rugby's going from strength to strength".
"[Saturday] was a really good day, a bit of a slow start [for the team] but then worked in through the day and got better and better as we kind of progressed through.
"It was an awesome day, real tough couple of games in the pool.
"It's also a real good win for the club over Rangataua, traditionally we have a very tough games and [Saturday's] final was a really, really tough one. We took it out on the last play, so we're quite fortunate and lucky to do it but the boys played really well throughout."
This was their third sevens competition since the Greerton Marist Men's Open Sevens on October 13 when they took out the Plate Final with a 24-7 win over Te Puke Sports. Last weekend they were also crowned winners of the annual Suburbs 7s tournament in Hamilton.
"It's been good, we're kind of getting better every week, which is how we wanted to kind of finish it," Boyce says.
Their main goal for their month-long sevens campaign has been to qualify for the New Zealand quad champs at the beginning of 2019, a competition he says they haven't been part of for about five years.
"It's been a while since we've been there so it's nice to kind of qualify and get back there."
This year is Boyce's first as helping with the coaching, having played in previous Baywide
competitions, and has enjoyed working together with MacDonald.
Boyce says next for Te Puna's sevens team is to find out more about the New Zealand Club champs then "get together and sort out a campaign to go up to Auckland and have a crack at that".
For more photos, see page 28.
The 2018 Baywide Club Sevens winners:
Men's Open Winners: Te Puna
Women's Winners: Rangiuru
Te Manawa Whenua Winners: Te Teko
Tight 5 Winners: Mount Maunganui