It paid off for him, as he was part of the school’s touring rugby team, visiting Australia. When he left school in 1978, he played for the Stratford Rugby Club Colts team before moving to the senior grade the following year.
A year later he moved to the Eltham Rugby Club.
“I was at the works and I had lots of mates there. It wasn’t a hard transition however it wasn’t a thing done in those days, you never left your club.”
He played for Eltham for over 10 years, winning two championships and making it to the finals six times clocking up a total of 250 games at senior level.
During this time Mako made Taranaki representative teams as well, playing a few games for Taranaki A’s in 1984, and spending a few years with the Taranaki B’s from 1985 to 1989.
In 1993 Mako began coaching, starting with the Eltham B team. The next year he coached the A team, a position he held up until 2001, returning for a year in 2008. He coached at a provincial level as well, coaching the Taranaki A and B teams from 1999 to 2001.
Mako even coached internationally, coaching the Sri Lankan sevens team in the Hong Kong tournament in 2008.
“It was a great experience, I really enjoyed it.”
He also changed codes briefly, coaching the Stratford Premier 2 netball team in 2013 and 2014.
“That one was good I enjoyed it. I always called it a really brainy team as I had a whole lot of girls with degrees... it was really good. We did end up in the final first year and the semifinal the year after.”
Having himself played rugby for both Stratford and Eltham, he was perhaps the perfect person to play a key role in the amalgamation of the two clubs in 2017. He coached the Stratford Eltham “Thunder” premier team from 2017 to 2020 and the B team for a couple of years after that.
Despite hanging up the coaching hat, Mako is still an integral part of the club.
Speaking ahead of the final match, Mako shared his predictions for the 2024 CMK Premier final between Stratford Eltham and Southern.
“I’ll be honest Stratford Eltham will win it. We got brand new balls for the semifinals and my job is to scrub the balls and get the film off them otherwise they’re too slippery... I took them home and I wrote 2024 winners on the Gilbert side - you can hardly see it. That’s my prediction there.”
His prediction was accurate, with the team winning the final match with an impressive 32-19 final score.
Stratford Mayor Neil Volzke said Mako’s efforts make him a worthy recipient of a citizens award.
“Your involvement with the merger of Stratford and Eltham, it’s no small feat. Many people put that down to the fact you had enough mana to carry that within both clubs.”
