Wellington U19s thrilled with title win

Above: Wellington U19 captain and halfback Luke Campbell and his Old Boys University club mate No. 8 Teariki Ben -Nicholas size up the opposition during Saturday's National U19 final win.

The Wellington U19s arrived back in town yesterday afternoon with some gleaming new silverware in tow, the Graham Mourie Trophy, which they won at Taupo on Saturday in the final of the inaugural Jock Hobbs National U19 Tournament.

The Graham Mourie Trophy will take pride of place inside Wellington Rugby's display cabinet on Adelaide Road, which has emptied out somewhat lately following the loss of some inter-provincial trophies such as the Coronation Cup to Manawatu last month and the John F. Henning Trophy to Taranaki yesterday.

Wellington U19 captain and halfback Luke Campbell said this morning that the team is still on cloud nine following their win.

"When the fulltime hooter had gone on Saturday, we just couldn't really believe that it was the end," Campbell explained. "We had sat down at the very start of the campaign and asked amongst us who thinks we can win this tournament? Everyone put their hand up in unison believing we could, so to achieve this goal was a great feeling for the guys. I don't think it's even sunk in now."

"It is awesome to have that national title beside all our names, and to do it for Wellington is pretty special."

After spending time afterwards with the opposition, Wellington celebrated afterwards as a team and with friends and family who had come north to support them. "We spent some time with the Canterbury players, talking about the game and paying our respects to them because they were a great team themselves," said the Old Boys University number nine.

"Then we went into town and met up with all our families that had come up and then had some team time and had a few quiet ones."

Campbell himself scored the first try of the final when he ducked and dived under a ruck to cross close to the posts. He also delivered a lovely pass out wide to Tawa wing Faraimo Nofoaiga who scored what proved to be the match-sealing try.

All four tries that Wellington scored in the final were the result of their patience and relentless pressure that Campbell said was the key to winning all their games.

Wellington had watched the tape of Canterbury's semi-final win over Waikato after the fulltime siren and knew that they would come out hard and never give up.

"We had a look at their patterns and what their strengths were around the field - but we also knew that any Canterbury team is a strong one so we had to play very well to beat them."

The final was played in a freezing southerly, which Wellington deliberately chose to play into after winning the toss. They immediately piled pressure on the red and blacks - just like they had in Wednesday's semi-final win over Auckland when they led 7-3 at the turn and sailed home in the second spell.

"The weather didn't change our plan too much; it just made us protect the ball a bit more. We still wanted to play field position and get down into their half and play with patience and ball security, physically dominate where we could and back our defence."

In the first of three matches at the Taupo tournament, Wellington had beaten North Harbour 46-0, scoring six unanswered tries.

"Everything was just a complete team effort against North Harbour, and the boys just really played for each other as they did the whole week. We were making breaks and there were always guys there in support so it was a case of us finishing all our opportunities.? That was a really enjoyable game and satisfying win for us."

The on-field campaign started almost two months ago with warm-up games against Wairarapa Bush Development and Wanganui, which they won handsomely, and then with a 67-0 win over the Bay of Plenty U19s in Rotorua.

The Junior Lions then beat Manawatu 33-15, Taranaki 25-20 and Hawke's Bay 67-0 on consecutive weekends. The win over Taranaki was especially pleasing, given the quality of the opposition and the way they took the match to Wellington.

On behalf of the team, Campbell was full of praise for the coaching staff.

"I can't say enough about what the coaching staff did for us. Clayton McMillan, Ray MacDonald, Bernie Upton and Jamie Williams were awesome in bringing the team together and in giving us the right game plans and the formulas to win our games.

"Clayton was a huge help in establishing the team culture that we had, which was the best I've been involved in and was probably a big part in winning the tournament.

"We also had great support staff in trainer in Duncan Pearce, physio Sarah Tulloch and manager Dave King, who all worked really hard in getting us into shape and organised."

As well as winning on the field, the U19 tournament was beneficial to all players and all teams, with the NZRU putting on presentations and seminars, to lead the players into what professional rugby is all about. Areas such as nutrition, mental skills, drugs in sport, media training and social media were covered.

The win was just Wellington rugby's third national title success in the past decade, following the Wellington Pride's 2006 Women's NPC win and the Wellington Men's Sevens side's win in Rotorua earlier this year.

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