Brought to you by Whanganui Rugby
In boxing they say “styles make fights” and the same is true in rugby, as there will be a brand-new WRFU Senior champion crowned at Cooks Gardens on Saturday.
Sophomore year team Forest 360 Marist Knights (13-0) take on repeat finalists Utiku Old Boys (11-2).
Eager to get back to the big day after their 29-12 loss to Ali Arc Logistics Marist Celtic last year, Utiku have been working through a few squad injuries which contributed to their stumbles towards the end of the round-robin, including a 28-17 home defeat to the Knights.
Utiku regained top gear last weekend with a big 35-5 victory over surprise semifinalists Bennett’s Taihape.
Winger Manu Thorby scored two tries, while second-five Jaxon Tagavaitau and fullback Jerome Thomas also dotted down, with the other tries coming up front from hooker Max Buchanan and inspirational prop Gordon Coogan – who leads a pack including his brothers Mark and James.
With 15-16 members of the team having played last year’s grand final, which was a new experience for virtually all of them, player-coach James Maher feels they now have the right temperament to perform on the big stage.
“We’ve learned collectively, a lot about the day.
“[Last year], just the hype around the week and what it meant to the club – the first final in 30 years – the boys got caught up in that.
“This year is different. It’s easy to get up for one, we got up last year with Rātana [in semifinal] and it went to extra time.
“It’s hard to back it up, and that’s another learning we’ve had from last year.
“You have to prepare for each week but, at the same time, have an eye on the end goal.”
Against the Knights on June 22, Utiku were the first team to lead the talented Marist side at halftime (17-14) and pounded their try line for periods of the second stanza, but the ultra-fit young side held them and used their speed out wide to score twice – the second right on fulltime.
“We know what they’ll bring - that speed, that youth and that class - so we’ll look to do what we can to counter that,” said Maher.
While Utiku have plenty of family connections, the Knights are, metaphorically speaking, brothers from different mothers.
A close-knit group of young men who came up together through the two-time MRU Colts championship-winning Whanganui Metro (2018, 2021), in two seasons the Knights have flipped the paradigm within Marist RFC – supplanting the rebuilding Celtic as the side now trying to keep the senior trophy.
Like Utiku in the final, Knights coach Sean Ferguson said they also learned a lot from their debut 2023 season, pointing out in all their tight games they were usually just trying to hang on in the last 20 minutes.
“It’s funny, last year with our inexperience, we were weak finishers, so this year we worked hard on fitness.”
The group formed two touch rugby teams that played over the summer and then hit their preseason preparations early and the results have showed – now just one game shy of a perfect campaign.
Although for most this will be their first WRFU club finals day, Ferguson said from junior representative to both Metro games and practices his charges have plenty of Cooks Gardens experience.
And after two home playoff games at Spriggens Park where they needed tries in the shadow of fulltime, the Knights will not take Utiku for granted.
Down 16-15 to an in-form Hunterville in the 77th minute last weekend, the Knights scored a try and then a penalty through winger Joey Devine as part of his 13-point haul for a 23-16 win.
Also scoring against Hunterville was tough utility forward Isaac Jordan and one of the true pillars of the side, front-rower Raponi Tofa.
The props Tofa and veteran Thomas Nepia have been the backbone of this campaign, and they will once again be crucial against a strong Utiku pack.
“When I’m choosing an MVP, I think, ‘who’s someone we couldn’t live without?’ And with those guys, they’re running almost 80 minutes,” said Ferguson.
Kickoff is 12.30pm.