Grass roots

Manu Vatuvei · Oct 11, 2024

Just a random thought - National Provincial Championship grand final this week, Counties v (Te Atatu Roosters dominated) Auckland Vulcans.

I find it very surprising that Bay of Plenty, Otago and Waikato were all in the comp this year but Canterbury were in the second tier comp. Apparently it's because Canterbury came last last year and therefore got relegated. I've watched a few of the games and it's fair to say the likes of Waikato, BOP and Otago are not very good. Surely Canterbury aren't that weak, in light of the sort of crowd they got to the club grand final?

Beavers Headgear · Oct 11, 2024

Manu Vatuvei said:
Just a random thought - National Provincial Championship grand final this week, Counties v (Te Atatu Roosters dominated) Auckland Vulcans.

I find it very surprising that Bay of Plenty, Otago and Waikato were all in the comp this year but Canterbury were in the second tier comp. Apparently it's because Canterbury came last last year and therefore got relegated. I've watched a few of the games and it's fair to say the likes of Waikato, BOP and Otago are not very good. Surely Canterbury aren't that weak, in light of the sort of crowd they got to the club grand final?

They were absolutely dreadful last year, just not good enough to foot it with the big guns and then got embarrassed in the relegation game. Not all of the best club players seemed to put themselves up for selection either

They still struggled a bit this year, only narrowly putting away the West Coast, but beat Wellington last week to return to the top comp next year I think

Manu Vatuvei · Oct 14, 2024

Auckland/Te Atatu Vulcans win a GP thriller 23-22 to take the National Title. Te Atatu's Kadiyae Ioka with the winning field goal and Te Atatu's Pat Vaivai man of the match, with tries to Te Atatu's Fine Vakautakakala and Ethan Figota.

Big Marn · Oct 16, 2024

Beavers Headgear said:
They were absolutely dreadful last year, just not good enough to foot it with the big guns and then got embarrassed in the relegation game. Not all of the best club players seemed to put themselves up for selection either

They still struggled a bit this year, only narrowly putting away the West Coast, but beat Wellington last week to return to the top comp next year I think

so Wellington got relegated or were they already in tier 2? Cant believe Wellington got so weak when you consider their strongholds.

Beavers Headgear · Oct 16, 2024

Big Marn said:
so Wellington got relegated or were they already in tier 2? Cant believe Wellington got so weak when you consider their strongholds.

Wellington were already in Tier 2 and would have won the Northern Zone and had a playoff with Canterbury who won the Southern zone

National Premiership this year was Akarana, Auckland, Counties, BOP, Waikato and Otago. I’d presume the lowest ranked of those 6 heads down next year

Beavers Headgear · 2025-08-03T18:30:16+1000

Annual trip to the local Grand Final day. Pretty impressive around town, I came in through Halswell and for their reserve grade side being in the GF there were balloons in their club colours and banners all the way there. Apparently coming from the other side of town there were banners along the way for the Riccarton Knights, playing in their 1st grand final since 2005, and the ground was covered in Linwood Keas banners, their 10th grand final in 11 years

Got there early enough to see the women’s and reserves grand finals, found a perch between the 2 fields and alternated. Both game were great contests going down to the final whistle. Know you’re at the grass roots stuff when a guy with a broken leg gets stretchered 2m past the sideline and put down with the green whistle in his mouth and lay there for the rest of the match

Main GF was a rout, Linwood piled the points on early for a 22-0 HT lead and held that to 30-6 ft and their 8th in the last 10 years. Couple of awesome plays, Linwood winger ran 100m, only for the centre from the other side of the park to get him as he was about to put the ball down, real Sattler type stuff. Linwood scored one of the great tries that I’ve seen, kicker slipped while kicking on the last and it went 5m backwards to the winger, 4-5 offloads within a 5m corridor before another cross field kick found the other winger and a couple more passes saw them score it, hopefully a clip below will work showing the end of it