Wanganui will have quite vivid memories of Whakarua Park in Ruatoria, the venue for Saturday's second round 2016 Mitre 10 Heartland championship match against hosts Ngati Porou East Coast.
Four members of this year's Steelform Wanganui squad - skipper Peter Rowe, hooker Roman Tutauha, fullback Ace Malo and winger Simon Dibben
- will distinctly remember the last time the Butcher Boys played at the ground.
That was in 2012 and the visitors were well en-route to carving up the hosts with a 27-3 lead soon after enjoying a 20-3 half-time advantage. Wanganui had beaten East Coast 30-10 in a fiery Meads Cup final at Cooks Gardens a year earlier and back-to-back titles looked imminent.
But that all changed when Wanganui made a number of early second spell player replacements which coincided with a lease of life from the Coasters who suddenly got stuck-in and stung the visitors with four tries and snatched the Shield with a remarkable 29-27 victory.
Naturally it sent the few thousand staunchly local supporters into a frenzy of dancing and singing, watched on live TV with the Wanganui supporters and those in television-land all around the country shaking their heads in wonderment how a team that looked well and truly beaten could come back from a 24-point deficit and claim a national title.
For the Coasters it took a mighty fine effort to recover from almost 50 minutes of really struggling to turn the game around with the roaring support of the home crowd. It was a victory that started a full night of enjoyment all over the East Coast which also spread into Sunday celebrations.
For the stunned Wanganui players, officials and supporters it was a long thoughtful trip back to the River City and the upshot was the WRFU Board replacing the selector-coaches for the next season in a move that back-fired because the 2012 coaches were reinstated in 2014 after a dismal 2013 season.
Since then Wanganui has won the Lochore Cup two years ago and the Meads Cup, for a fourth time, last season.
The coaches may have other views but the consensus was that they made too many unnecessary changes too soon in the second spell of the 2012 final.
Over the years Wanganui has won 22 of 25 matches against East Coast with the three defeats all coming at Whakarua Park - 24-31 in 2001 when the Coasters reached the old NPC Div 2 final only to lose narrowly (27-30) away to Hawke's Bay in the final, and twice in 2012 (17-25 in the Heartland qualifying round and 27-29 a month later in the Meads Cup final).
Wanganui has won the other 10 games played on the Coast, at Ruatoria (three wins), Te Araroa, Tokomaru Bay and Tolago Bay (twice each) and Tikitiki.
Biggest victories were 54-3 at Ruatoria in the first game between the two unions in 1976, 44-3 at Tolaga Bay in 1980 and 42-9 at Tikitiki in 1988.
There have been some large local wins in the dozen games played in Wanganui - 75-0 in 1981, 71-6 2008, 65-3 1983, 64-9 1989 and 63-15 1993. It was 44-7 when the teams last played, at Cooks Gardens in 2014. Wanganui scraped home 29-28 in 2004.
Wanganui and East Coast rugby have had a number of close player ties over the years with the most notable being All Black the late Buff Milner.
Tokomaru Bay-born (1946), Buff played for East Coast in 1963-65, 35 times for Wanganui in 1966-72 while stationed at Waiouru Army Camp, and 41 times for Counties in 1972-78.
He played 16 times as a utility back on the 1970 All Black tour of South Africa, having one test, and was also a NZ Maori representative (1971-75).
He died suddenly in London in 1996 at the age of 50 while attending an Army course.
His cousin Nehe Milner-Skudder became an All Black last year.
Current East Coast winger Jayden Milner, who scored a try in the 30-54 loss to Poverty Bay last Saturday, is a relation to Buff Milner.
Another All Black with a link with East Coast and Wanganui was Andy Jefferd, also an inside back who played five times for New Zealand, including three tests, in 1980-81.
He was born in Gisborne, played rugby in Wanganui while attending Collegiate School, and went on to represent Canterbury (36 times 1974-78) and East Coast (32 games 1978-81).
Jefferd was one of a number of boys with farming back grounds from the East Coast - Poverty Bay region who attended Collegiate School as boarders.
The latest player with East Coast - Wanganui rugby ties is NZ Heartland representative Tau Moeke, also a mid-field back, who was in the East Coast side that beat Wanganui in the 2012 Meads Cup final, scoring a try.
Moeke, who is in the current Poverty Bay squad, played eight times for Wanganui in 2010 as a loan player from Melville (Waikato).
He was in the Wanganui side that was beaten 39-18 by North Otago in the Meads Cup final at Oamaru.
In charge of that game was Auckland Maori referee Sheldon Eden-Waitiri who also had the whistle when East Coast upset Wanganui in the final two years later.
It was fitting that Wanganui should celebrate its 100th Heartland championship match with an impressive 74-6 victory over West Coast at Cooks Gardens last Saturday.
It was a record win over Coast (the previous highest being 69-12 at Greymouth in 2011), the second highest Wanganui win during the 11 years of the competition (76-8 v Horowhenua-Kapiti at Cooks Gardens also in 2011 holding the No 1 slot), and it was a 75th Heartland success for the Butcher Boys.
In 100 Heartland fixtures Wanganui has 75 wins, two draws and 23 defeats, scoring 3378 points and conceding 1760.
There have been four 60-plus point wins since the Heartland series started in 2006 including 71-6 at home against East Coast in 2008 when Wanganui was unbeaten, scoring 420 points (63 tries - still a NZ Heartland record) and conceding 108 pts (13 tries).
The 426 pts scored by Wanganui in winning the 2011 Meads Cup is also a national record as are the 45 successful conversions kicked that season - 44 of them by Mark Davis.
In all first-class fixtures played by Wanganui over the years, including games before the start of the old NPC competitions, there have been 17 victories with scores in excess of 60 pts including two in the 80s and five in the 70s.
They are -
81-9 v West Coast 1993 NPC Div 3 at Spriggens Park (11 tries).
81-12 v Buller 1994 NPC Div 3 at Cooks Gardens (11 tries).
76-18 v Horowhenua-Kapiti 2011 Heartland at Cooks Gardens (12 tries).
75-0 v East Coast 1981 N.I. Div 2 at Spriggens Park (15 tries).
74-6 v West Coast 2016 Heartland at Cooks Gardens (10 tries).
73-13 v North Otago 1994 NPC Div 3 at Oamaru (11 tries).
71-6 v East Coast 2008 Heartland at Cooks Gardens (11 tries).
The most tries Wanganui has scored in a match were 17 in beating Manawatu 66-0 at Spriggens Park in 1907, a month after losing 11-8 at Palmerston North.
T P Souter (4), H L Abbott (3), H G Absolom (3), S Daly (2), R Mitchell (2), L Southcombe, A J Guscott and A S Anderson scored tries, Southcombe kicking a penalty goal and six conversions.
A try was then worth 3 points. On this year's Heartland points scale (6 pt tries and 2 pts for kicks) it would have been a 116-0 win for Wanganui !
A fortnight after the huge win over Manawatu, Wanganui, in its first ever Ranfurly Shield challenge, held Auckland to 6-5 at Alexandra Park in Auckland.
!
There will be a very interesting clash between Wairarapa-Bush and Horowhenua-Kapiti in the second round of the Mitre 10 Heartland championship at Levin on Saturday.
They were both involved in close fixtures last weekend with Wairarapa, Meads Cup qualifiers last season, pipped 18-16 at home by Lochore Cup champions King Country and Horowhenua having to work hard to shade Thames Valley 34-30 in Paeroa.
Last year Wairarapa headed Horowhenua on the count-back for a place in the Meads Cup play-offs on the strength of a 33-19 home win during the qualifying rounds. The two sides finished fourth equal in qualifying. The previous season Horowhenua out-kicked Wairarapa 12-9 (four penalties to three) in Levin.
The two unions are in the Bruce Steel Memorial Cup series along with Wanganui. Horowhenua challenges for the cup at Cooks Gardens on October 15.
Two of last Saturday's first round winners - King Country and Poverty Bay - clash in Taupo.
Buller, pipped 28-16 away against South Canterbury, host Mid Canterbury, South Canterbury travel to Greymouth to play West Coast, with first round losers North Otago and Thames Valley playing in Oamaru.
East Coast, although without a win in the past two years, played well against neighbouring Poverty Bay last Saturday and despite finishing at the bottom of the table last season could test Wanganui.
The Coasters scored four tries in Gisborne last weekend in the 30-54 loss to Poverty Bay who led 32-8 at half-time. East Coast had beaten a Poverty Bay XV 26-8 at Ruatoria at Queen's Birthday weekend in a pre-season game.
There were mixed results for Wanganui grade rep teams last weekend with two wins and two losses.
A depleted Toyota Development squad, with only 20 players available to travel, was upset 29-15 by Wairarapa-Bush in Masterton - a first RDO Shield loss in three years.
Providing players to the Wanganui Heartland squad and the unavailability of several key players depleted the travelling numbers.
The NZCT Wanganui Under-20 side, under coach Denis Edwards, finished the season unbeaten with a 27-21 win over Wairarapa-Bush in Palmerston North
In the lower grades Mike Lama's under-13s followed up a 62-9 win over Wairarapa-Bush with a 52-7 victory over Horowhenua-Kapiti.
The under-11s, coached b Rob Roy, lost 29-5 to a strong Manawatu side.
This weekend the Air Chathams Wanganui under-18s, coached by Jerome McCrea, play Thames Valley at Spriggens Park at 12.30 on Saturday, the AG Challenge under-16s (coach Cornel Mason) play Wairarapa-Bush at Ashhurst, and on Sunday the under-13s host Manawatu at the Kaierau Country Club at noon and the under-11s are away to Dannevirke.
