Rugby: Wanganui get rematch with Thames Valley in opening Heartland home game

Wanganui's first home game of the 2019 Heartland Championship will be a rematch of their shock loss in last year's semifinal against Thames Valley.

There are still 168 days until kickoff, but the release of the 2019 Mitre 10 Heartland Championship draw recently offers Steelform Wanganui an early chance for revenge for the shock loss in the 2018 Meads Cup semifinals.

Nominee for National Team of the Year at the NZ Rugby Awards, Thames Valley will return to the scene of one of their union's great days, 10 months later, when they play Wanganui in the second round of the competition on August 31.

Wanganui had an unbeaten round robin, along with historically a spotless Meads Cup semifinal record of ten victories before October 20 last year, when they were upended 17-7 by the first-timers Thames Valley, who duly went down to Timaru to also upset South Canterbury 17-12 and lift their first ever Heartland trophy.

Thames Valley will now take their mandatory Ranfurly Shield challenge against Otago at the Wanaka Showgrounds on July 13.

Wanganui's first game of the 2019 competition will be on the road to Masterton to play Wairarapa Bush in what will be a defence of the Bruce Steel Memorial Cup.

Wanganui played on the artificial turf at Memorial Park in a preseason match last year, winning 61-14, but have not played a Heartland fixture there since 2016.

They will also have two South Island tour games this year, as opposed to last year when they made one sole trip down to Greymouth to play West Coast, winning 33-21 despite losing captain Campbell Hart to a knee infection before kickoff.

After the Thames Valley match, the team will be on the plane to Westport to face Buller, who had a tough season last year after previous appearances in the Meads Cup playoffs, although they did win their last two matches to finish 2018 on a high.

Wanganui will then be home to West Coast and East Coast in return home games from playing them away last year, before getting back on the plane to Oamaru for the always-challenging match with North Otago.

The Butcher's Boys have not been down to the deep south since 2015, when they hammered North Otago 40-10 in what was just their third win in nine games in Oamaru.

They missed playing the southerners last year, with their last game being the narrow 10-6 win at Cooks Gardens in the final round of 2017, which barely got the side through to the Meads Cup playoffs to go win their third-straight title.

Entering October, the last two matches will be home and away fixtures against Wanganui's neighbour unions in the reverse of 2018.

King Country will come to Cooks Gardens, and the following week Wanganui will take the 70 minute trip to Levin to play Horowhenua-Kapiti, defending the Bruce Steel Memorial Trophy if they still have it.

Last year, Wanganui beat King Country in Te Kuiti 36-19, and hammered Horowhenua Kapiti 57-27 in the last round robin match at Cooks Gardens, although the warning signs were there for the upcoming Thames Valley semifinal when the visitors scored three tries in the last ten minutes.

Horowhenua Kapiti went on to win the Lochore Cup, beating Wairarapa Bush 26-23 in the final in Levin.

The Heartland semifinals will be on October 19, followed by the Meads and Lochore finals the following weekend, October 26-27.

Notably, Wanganui will play neither of the Canterbury teams in round robin this year – Meads Cup runnersup South Canterbury or Mid Canterbury, after beating them both at Cooks Gardens last year, 21-10 and 30-12 respectively.

When the draw was announced, NZ Rugby's chief rugby officer Nigel Cass said the long-standing rivalries which exist in domestic competitions create a special excitement in the rugby community and the announcement of these draws begin the countdown to August.

"In 2018 we had it all, the Ranfurly Shield moved around the country, Thames Valley had a phenomenal run to the Meads Cup title and a dramatic Mitre 10 Cup Final in Auckland will go down as one of the greats.

"Every year, across both competitions, we see hardened veterans play alongside and against emerging stars and that is just a small part of what makes these competitions a much-loved piece of the rugby calendar."

The Wanganui draw is:

August 21 vs Wairarapa-Bush, Masterton.

August 31 vs Thames Valley, Cooks Gardens.

September 7 vs Buller, Westport.

September 14 vs West Coast, Cooks Gardens.

September 21 vs East Coast, Cooks Gardens.

September 28 vs North Otago, Oamaru.

October 5 vs King Country, Cooks Gardens.

October 12 vs Horowhenua-Kapiti, Levin.