The new Peter Rowe Cup is named after the Whanganui stalwart, pictured playing for The Classics last year. Photo / Kate Belsham, Ivy Digital
Brought to you by the Whanganui Rugby Football Union
New teams in new divisions, new trophies named after local legends, promotion-relegation scenarios and a season that will end with three overall champions being crowned.
For the first time since 2019, the Whanganui Rugby Football Union (WRFU) club campaign kicks off the season during daylight savings time this Saturday with the new-look Division 2 competition, formerly Senior, with 10 teams.
This next fortnight of games will precede the April 11 start of a new-look Division 1 grade, formerly Premier, with seven teams confirmed as starters – the most since 2019 when there were eight.
The comparisons from 2019 to 2026 become apparent with the return of a one-time previously used format where, after the first round of games, the club competition will split evenly into three separate competitions.
The top six teams from Division 1 will carry on to contest the Premiership President’s Rosebowl competition, while the seventh team will move into a middle group with the top five teams from Division 2 to compete in the WRFU Junior Cup Championship competition.
The remaining five teams from Division 2 will face each other for the Arch Roebuck Cup Minor Championship.
In that 2019 season, after the split into three grades, the President’s Rosebowl was won for the first time by the Taihape Premiers, who are also the defending Premier champions from 2025, while the middle tier was claimed by the now-defunct Ngamatapouri club, and the third tier was won by Hunterville, the perennial Senior champions during the 2010s.
After having smaller five- and six-team Premier grades since the 2020 “Covid” season, which meant only eight to 10 regular season games before the semifinals, the WRFU has noted the necessity for the health of the sport locally to have a more robust competition.
This is crucial for players looking to be part of the Steelform Whanganui squad for the 2026 Bunnings Heartland Championship season.
Whanganui have not won the prestigious Meads Cup since the 2017 Heartland campaign. Last year, a relatively young side were bundled out in extra time of their second-tier Lochore Cup semifinal by Horowhenua-Kāpiti.
Key for the new representative coaching group of Ross Williams and his assistants Tremaine Gilbert and Todd Cowan is improving overall conditioning – physical and mental – for a squad which, for the past two seasons, lost both of their last two games to miss chances at silverware.
There is a need for more club games with higher stakes and for more teams in the top tier so that their players can be considered for representative selection, as well as a longer campaign to improve physical fitness.
Therefore, coming up to join the original five teams in Division 1 this year are the 2024 Senior runners-up Ruapehu and the highest-ranked semifinalists, Counties.
Unfortunately, the 2024 Senior champions, the young Marist Knights team, formed in 2023 from the old Whanganui Metro squad that played in the Manawatū Colts competition, have disbanded during the off-season – the squad dissipating into the Marist Premier team and other squads.
Ruapehu have been in and out of the top grade since 2020, the last time being the 2023 Premier season while, after picking up a number of former Whanganui players last year, Counties have strengthened again this season and will certainly have designs on being better than the seventh place spot come the end of round one in late May.
Alongside a returning Ruapehu and the newcomers Counties in Division 1 will be the top sides from 2025 – defending champions Taihape, runners-up Kaierau, semifinalists Marist and Border, and the proud Rātana side.
As well as each club wanting to perform well in round one to ensure they are not the seventh-placed team, there is the added incentive that the side who lead the points table will be the first to claim the Trevor Olney Taonga.
A 1976 Māori All Black for three games, Olney, a hard-nosed forward, is Whanganui’s most-capped representative player of all time with a staggering 146 first-class appearances in a career that lasted from 1973 all the way through to 1990.
He was made a WRFU Life Member in 2021.
Division 1 (Trevor Olney Taonga): Taihape, Kaierau, Marist, Border, Rātana, Ruapehu, Counties.
Division 2 (Peter Rowe Cup): Marist Celtic, Pirates, Utiku Old Boys, Hunterville, Taihape, Border, Marton, Ruapehu, Counties.
Premiership (President’s Rosebowl): Division 1’s top 6 teams.
Championship (WRFU Junior Cup): Division 1’s seventh team, Division 2’s top 5 teams.
Minor Championship (Arch Roebuck Cup): Division 2’s bottom 5 teams.
As the top three former Senior teams of 2025 have either moved up to Division 1 or, in the case of the champions, the Marist Knights, no longer exists, the door is wide open for a fresh team to make their mark in the reconstituted Division 2.
First on the agenda for the 10 teams in this grade is to use their nine matches in round one to get up into the top five so that, come the end of May, they will join with the seventh-placed team from division one to form what will be the prestigious “Championship” grade for the second half of the campaign, competing for the WRFU Junior Cup.
Whichever team is sitting at the top of the Division 2 points table come the end of round one on May 23 will be the first side to lift the Peter Rowe Cup – named after the Whanganui great who from 2003-17 played 120 first-class games for the province, 20 New Zealand Heartland XV games and was vice-captain of the New Zealand Barbarians against the 2017 British and Irish Lions.
For the first time since 2019, both Ruapehu and the Counties clubs will have two teams under their banners, and these fresh Division 2 squads will face each other at Rochfort Park this Saturday.
As the sole remaining 2025 Senior semifinalists in Division 2, not to mention the back-to-back 2022-23 champions, Marist Celtic will be eager to step forward as silverware contenders as they make the trek up to Memorial Park to face Taihape.
There is also big excitement around the return of the Stingerz – the Marton Rugby & Sports Club had to put its sole Premier team into recess last season due to a lack of numbers following their first game, and they make a welcome comeback at Spriggens Park to face the Pirates.
Perennial contenders Hunterville will host the promising young Border team at their Domain, while the 2024 Senior champions Utiku Old Boys will make the trek to the Country Club to take on Kaierau.
March 28, 1pm kickoffs unless noted (times subject to change):
Taihape v Marist Celtic, Memorial Park; Hunterville v Border, Hunterville Domain; Kaierau v Utiku, Kaierau Country Club; Pirates v Marton, Spriggens Park; Ruapehu v Counties, Rochfort Park.
– Supplied copy