Rugby: A rugby jewel by any title

Things are not always what they seem.

I found this to be the case when it came to Rotorua club rugby's holy grail - the Tai Mitchell Shield - or, as I called it in my match report last week, "Geyser Land Challenge Shield".

What a lot of rugby followers didn't realise in all this time is the shield's name is actually the Geyser Land Challenge Shield

I had a number of calls from rugby identities asking me what shield was I looking at or was there a new sponsor for the Tai Mitchell Shield? Or had I been having a few too many brown beverages and started to make things up?

These calls baffled me because last year while watching the Banner final between Whaka and Rotoiti, I went over to the shield to have a look at it. I took careful note to write down the name on the shield and who had donated it.

I then put the name into last year's match report, admittedly somewhere in the middle of the story, which didn't get any reaction.

I began to doubt what I had seen and started to ask rugby historian Brent Drabble to describe the shield and even asked was there another shield?

His response was "definitely not". So it was with huge trepidation the first thing I did when I got to Emery Park on Saturday was to search out the shield. To my relief there the words were inscribed on the shield for all to see - Geyser Land Challenge Shield.

Now I'm not saying we should break with tradition and stop calling it the Tai Mitchell Shield - definitely not. What I am saying is, this is what I love about sport. A name can come from nowhere and stick.

Long may the Tai Mitchell Shield be the pride of Rotorua rugby.