Community Welcome
With Metro Junior & Teenage Rugby starting this weekend, we’ve almost got every grade in Canterbury underway for the season!
This season, we have a number of changes to the Junior & Teenage structure here in the city, highlighted with the start of the Miles Toyota Premiership and Championship next week.
It’s been great having a normal build up to this season, and thanks goes out to all the hard work clubs and schools have put in recruiting players and volunteers to get teams together this season. We have around 10,000 Junior and Teenage players across the province, so that means a lot of excited kids (and parents too).
It’s also exciting to see new things happening to appeal to more families, Burnside RFC are launching their new Year 1 & 2 Rippa Rugby sessions tonight at 5.30pm rather than Saturday morning and Linwood RFC are kicking off the same age group always playing at their club on a Saturday morning in a few weeks.
In the Senior Girls’ space, we’re seeing growth off the back of an exciting 2022 and start to 2023, with High School Old Boys’ having two teams this season and both Linwood & Christchurch joining this year’s competition.
We’ve had a great start to the season in both the Bascik Transport Metro Premier and Luisetti Seeds Combined competitions, with some entertaining fixtures across the board meaning there’ll be a great deal of interest across the round robin stages.
Our Events team will be out and about again this weekend, visiting Christchurch for their Senior Club Day and heading out to Gladstone Park for Woodend’s. Make sure to swing by and say hello if you’re out in attendance!
This weekend, I’ll be out at Kaiapoi for their Club Day, and I wish all the teams good luck ahead of the weekend, especially those who are getting underway for the first time in 2023.
Ngā mihi,
Georgia Calder-Lee
Metro Operations Co-ordinator, Canterbury Rugby Football Union
Bascik Transport Metro Premier Reserve Preview - Round 1
This week’s highlighted grade is the Bascik Transport Metro Premier Reserve, which is this year split into two divisions, Tahi and Rua, who will play full round robins within their divisions with the winner of Rua automatically promoted into Tahi next season, the last placed Tahi team will play in Rua in 2024.
Following on from grading over the last three weeks, sides have been seeded into each pool for the first round of competition this weekend.
In Bascik Transport Metro Premier Reserve Tahi, Shirley host Lyttelton, Burnside travel out to Lincoln University, Sydenham welcome University on Senior Club Day and Christchurch Nomads will play Marist Albion for the second week in a row, this time in competition.
High School Old Boys’ Team 2, the team to beat after winning the last four championships on the bounce, have the bye this weekend.
In Bascik Transport Metro Premier Reserve Rua, Suburbs head to Lancaster Park to take on Ōtautahi, while Christchurch play Linwood in the Crying Towel curtain raiser, University host Sumner and Belfast head to Rawhiti Domain and New Brighton.
It all sets up an exciting first week, with a number of these fixtures promising to deliver. Head along to your local club to cheer your club on this weekend as they get underway for the season.
Bascik Transport Premier Draws - Round 4
Rugby adapts for Opening Weekend
As time becomes ever more precious, rugby has adapted to the ever-changing need of the participants with shortened seasons, avoiding fixtures on public holidays where possible and also introducing new divisions and grades to encourage new players.
Importantly, on the first weekend of May, Ellesmere Senior Rugby has adapted their schedule to accommodate opening weekend of Duck Shooting, allowing participants in the Division 2 and 3 grades to have the weekend off rugby.
With clubs sometimes struggling to fill teams on opening weekend, having this weekend off allows many people the opportunity to partake in one of New Zealand’s favourite pastimes, and not miss a weekend of rugby either.
“It’s about having rugby fit in with their lifestyle as well,” said Ellesmere Rugby Manager Cameron Bone, “it’s about having flexibility in our winter weeks and adapting to what the players want so that they keep playing.”
“It’s been well received by the clubs, there were a lot of comments of thanks around giving that weekend off. We’ll survey around the clubs at the end of the season to check we’re making a call inline with the clubs, but it’s been very positively received so far.”
The weekend off isn’t just limited to Division 2 and 3 either, with Luisetti Seeds Combined Country Division 1 fixture between the Hornby Devils and Darfield Ducks at Denton Oval moved to Friday night under the lights, ironically allowing the Darfield team a chance to go after their own kind!
Luisetti Seeds Combined Country Division 1 Draws - Round 5
Springston Women embrace growth of the game
Springston have fielded a women’s side for the first time in their history this year, building a 15-a-side team this season off the back of a couple of years of trying.
Embracing the exciting growth of the Women’s game, the club recognized an opportunity to welcome a new group into the club.
“Our objective was to create an Ellesmere wide club, Prebbleton had the 15’s space covered, but creating a space for members of other clubs to join together and put a women’s team together.” Said Springston Club Captain Kevin Jones.
“We only ended up with four ladies last season but off the back of last year and the work that went into it, meant we had a bit of momentum going into this season. So many people had a hand in creating this side, and we’ve found that once that occurred, we’ve been able to get a whole lot of people along.”
The team, who are playing in the new Bascik Transport Women’s Premier Reserve 15’s Pool, consists of a number of players getting their first taste of rugby, alongside a couple who have played before, including former Black Fern Amiria Rule.
“Around half of the team is brand new, our emphasis is on having fun and building a great team culture with a ton of energy so that the come off the field with big smiles on their faces and enjoy being a part of it.”
“Having someone like Amiria on the field helps everyone enjoy themselves too, providing some guidance on the field and a bit of experience that everyone can learn off too, meaning every game we play, they all get better and better, it’s so impressive to watch.” Jones said.
“The ladies bring so much to the game as individuals and they just bring a whole different dimension to it, a whole new audience comes along to watch and be a part of it too, including some partners who have now joined other teams in the club.”
The Springston side will match up in the 15’s Pool with the High School Old Boys’, Geraldine and Prebbleton, who join the Premier Reserve competition.
They face up against HSOB tonight at the Springston Domain under the lights at 7pm.
Female coaches providing role models in Rugby
As the Women’s game experiences growth amongst the playing group, coaching is also looking to capitalize on the success of Canterbury, Matatu and the Black Ferns in recent years.
While the amount of female players continues to grow at a steady rate, females in coaching is an area of the game that needs to follow, and the importance of having female role models in rugby cannot be understated.
Community Activators back into Schools in Term 2
Our Community Activators have returned to action with the start of Term 2, and will be a busy group, visiting three schools a day throughout Canterbury.
Focusing on increasing our female participants, the activators have been a busy group, seeing over 2000 girls’ this year!
It is an exciting month for Girls’ Rugby, with the Cantabrians Fun Day, a primary school rugby festival at Burnside next week, and the start of the Junior & Intermediate (Years 5-8) Girls’ Grade upcoming on the 15th of May! If you want to join this new grade or find out more information, click here.