Rātana Rugby League Club expands programme after 2024 inception

The Ratana Rugby league Club has expanded its programme in 2025 after forming in August, 2024. Photo / Naiada Hika

The Rātana Rugby league Club is celebrating a year since its inception with an expanded programme.

The club was founded by Haki Herewini after noticing that rugby league was not spoken about as much as rugby union, despite there being an interest.

Herewini has had the idea for more than two decades but did not have the means to make it a reality until he approached the Rātana Māramatanga Sports Club chairman, Kamaha Manuel, in 2023.

The Premier women’s and men’s teams were officially formed on August 6, 2024, playing in the Manawatū Rugby League Premiership competitions.

The women’s team made the semifinal in their first year, while the men fell just short.

In March this year, the junior programme was introduced with more than 200 children registering across the seven different age grades from Under-6 to U18.

Several of the age-grade teams won their respective competitions in their first season.

Herewini’s parter, Maria Paul, said the club was made up from players from as far as Wellington, Auckland, Taihape, Waverley, Feilding and Whanganui.

“Rātana isn’t just subjected to the people from here, I think a lot of people think you have to be from Rātana or have affiliations to Rātana but it is open to anyone of all ages,” Paul said.

Paul said she has noticed a increase of girls that want to play rugby league.

“The age-grade category is a mean platform for them for building a foundation and understanding rugby league and moving into having a stronger senior team,” she said.

Paul said Rātana has an abundance of sporting talent, with the women’s team consisting of former Queensland Reds player Talia Lawrence, New Zealand Kiwis wider squad member Paris Porche while the men’s side are stocked with former NRL contracted players such as Paulie Manuel and Brooklyn Herewini.

Paul said the goal for the Premier teams this season is to go up another level with consistency and keep growing, as the Premiership teams have wider squads of 42 for the women and 32 for the men.

Paul said funding was one of the biggest barriers to creating a successful rugby league club and said plenty of businesses had backed the club.

“With New Zealand rugby league, money isn’t there as much as union and that’s one of the biggest barriers we see at our club and in league,” she said.

“All the major businesses are really tapped into the clubs here so that was one of my biggest struggles last year was to find major sponsors to come on board to help ease that burden for our families.

“We’ve got so many great ideas and people who can execute them well but it’s that money to back it up to help us achieve that.”

The Premiership season kicked off on August 9, with the men’s team losing 42-12 to the Linton Cobras and the women’s team winning by default.

Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.