A weekend of sport

RUGBY - It will be a family affair at Cooks Gardens this afternoon for the Mitre 10 Heartland Meads Cup final as Steelform Wanganui prop Viki Tofa will be watched by his sister Sosoli Talawadua.

A Waikato women's prop, former Whanganui High School student Talawadua has been a late call up to the Black Ferns for their tour of England and Ireland in mid-November.

She first made the team last year and joins Whanganui's new Black Fern Kristina Sue on this trip.

It will be a proud month for the Tofa family as Viki is set to make his debut for the New Zealand Heartland XV.

SHOWJUMPING - Former Olympic bronze medallist and two-time world champion Vaughn Jefferis will be running a show jumping clinic at Maxwell this weekend.

Vaughn won bronze at Atlanta 1996 in team eventing and claimed individual eventing gold at the 1994 world champs, then the team gold in 1998.

This is the third time he has run a clinic in Whanganui.

It will be held on Maxwell Station Rd, starting at 10am today and 9am tomorrow.

CRICKET - Whanganui's Ben Smith will be in a Central Stags team determined to have a better performance than their draw with the Otago Volts when they have their second Plunket Shield game against Canterbury at Hagley Oval, starting today.

Smith, last season's top Stags batsman, was dismissed in single figures in the Nelson match.

Canterbury started with a five wicket loss to Northern Districts.

SPORT STACKING - Whanganui's Jasmine Anthony and Marton's Caleb Arthur will enter the first Auckland Regional Sport Stacking tournament, being held at Murrays Bay Intermediate on the North Shore on November 5.

There will be five different events in the cup stacking - three individual, two doubles and a team relay.

Anthony and Arthur are both in the 2017 NZ Black Stacks team which will attend the world championships in April next year.