The 2019 Wellington club rugby season kicks off this coming Saturday. Round one Swindale Shield teams will be named here in the Draws & Results section (above) on Friday, as well as on the new NZR App. As always there is player movement between clubs and new players from school First XVs and some others from overseas set to join the playing ranks of the 14 Premier clubs and add intrigue to the start of the competition. As provided by clubs, see below for a list of gains and losses to wider Premier squads ahead of the 2019 season...More

St Pat’s Town players celebrate their late semi-final win over Scots College last year. Several players from each side could be playing Premier rugby this season. PHOTO: Andy McArthur. Wellington Secondary Schools rugby was in a weak position in 2018. Participation numbers across the board were down while the First XV Premiership competition was won by St Patrick’s College, Silverstream – averaging more than 50 points per game. Despite the dip in standards it’s undeniable younger players are making a bigger impact quicker and there are some promising prospects to keep an eye on in Club Rugby in 2019...More

Since the start of 2013 Ash Carmichael has been a familiar face for both home and visiting team supporters alike at Upper Hutt’s Maidstone Park as the Premier team’s assistant manager. Ash in his Upper Hutt Rams colours under the Maidstone Park stand. In his role he helps the 22 players and the coaching and other team staff in the smooth running of match-day operations. Carmichael will reach his 100th game as part of the Upper Hutt Rams Premier squad in the first round of the Swindale Shield on 23 March when they host defending Jubilee Cup champions Old Boys University at Maoribank Park, their home ground for all 2019 matches...More

“In New Zealand players are given a greater licence to make decisions about the game plan on and off the field. I think that’s one of the reasons why New Zealand has been more successful than South Africa and Australia,” Luke Chisholm responds when asked how New Zealand contrasts with his overseas rugby experiences.   Chisholm is a prop forward in his second year in the Wellington High Performance Unit and comes with a more worldly outlook than his peers. This raises the standard of our intake but also the intensity at training as well...More

Wellington’s club sevens champions are now New Zealand title holders. Northern United won the 2019 National Club Sevens tournament hosted by Eden Rugby club in Auckland this weekend, winning their maiden Middlesex County Wavell Wakefield Cup title. Norths defeated 2013 champions and Auckland club Pakuranga 28-14 in the final. Junior Time Taotua (2), Johnny Teleaga and Esi Komaisavai crossed the chalk for their four converted tries in the final. Northern United – 2019 National club sevens champions...More

Fifteen of the country’s leading club sevens teams will be out to prevent a three-peat from the host side Eden RFC at this weekend’s National Club Seven tournament at Auckland. The Middlesex County Wavell Cup. Last year Eden became the first club since Dunedin’s Alhambra-Union to successfully defend the Middlesex County Wavell Wakefield Cup when the beat hot-shot Hawke’s Bay outfit Napier Old Boys Marist 24-14 in the wet in the Cup final at their Sandringham enclave...More

Above: The Wellington rugby team 1919, Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library.  30 August 1919 was a watershed date in New Zealand provincial rugby. For the first time since September 1914, the Ranfurly Shield was put on the line. Introduced in 1904, the Ranfurly Shield had grown to be the pre-eminent prize in the domestic game, but with the outbreak of war in September 2014 it had been locked away for five years. Starting with the first defence against Canterbury on the last Saturday of August 1919, Wellington would successfully defend the Ranfurly Shield on five occasions and take it with them to defend on the road for the first time (which they would do again in 1920)...More

The Senior Championship club rugby competition 100 years ago was every bit as thrilling as it is today. Crowds of up to several thousand regularly watched club matches at Athletic Park and further afield at venues such as Duppa St Park (now the site of a WCC plant nursery and a bowling club) and the Petone Rec and there were several star players to follow such as Poneke captain Beet Algar, Athletic and Wellington representative captain Edward ‘Teddy’ Roberts and Petone’s Matt Corner...More

Photo above: Soon to be selected All Black, Neven McEwan in 1955, left, with Australian sporting great, Ken McGregor. A MOST VALUABLE MEANS OF CIVILISING YOUNG MEN “The Wadestown Club” On 10 February 1910, the then Mayor of Wellington, Dr Alfred Kingcome Newman, remarked when opening the new Wadestown clubrooms on Pitt Street that, “a club in suburban life was one of the most valuable means of civilising young men.” The Club (originally formed in 1895) had a membership of between 40 and 50 with Charles Joplin, the Headmaster of Wadestown School, its elected President...More

The anticipation for the coming rugby season is growing by the day. The summer of rugby ramps up in the lower North Island over the next several weeks, including several sevens tournaments, pre-season club rugby and the opening salvos of the Super Rugby season for the elite players. The Hurricanes region’s club competitions stoke up over the back half of March. The Wellington Swindale Shield competition kicks off on Saturday 23 March. Saturday 2 February promises to be a bumper day on the rugby fields just north of Wellington...More