Big fourth round for Swindale Shield challengers

The first two Old Timers' Days of the new season are at Porirua and Lyndhurst Parks this weekend, where the respective home sides Northern United and Tawa will want to celebrate with round four Swindale Shield victories.

For Northern United, it's a chance for them to really stamp their credentials as the hottest of first round competition favourites against an Upper Hutt side who have so far been amongst the more convincing challengers to their throne. For winless Tawa, it's a simple case of needing to beat the Wests Roosters to keep their 2011 on the rails.

Norths have been typically imposing to date, particularly last week in their 48-10 win over Marist St. Pat's away from home at Evans Bay Park. In three games, Norths have piled on 146 points and conceded just 39. In comparison to this same stage last year when they had scored 208 points and let in 48 this falls short. But included in their opening three victims in 2010 was Upper Hutt who they smoked 82-16.

After making a solid start to this season with wins over Wainuiomata (40-12) and Petone (27-26) and a nail biting loss (25-27) to a so far impressive Oriental-Rongotai, Upper Hutt will be predicted to provide a much sterner test this time around when the two meet for the Terry Farrow Memorial Cup on Saturday.

Last time Upper Hutt beat Norths in the first round for this trophy was in 2005, but since then Norths have comfortably dispatched the maroons in each of their subsequent five Swindale Shield encounters. Despite this and last year's 11-try defeat (that included a hat trick to Alapati Leiua and a brace to Buxton Popoalii), Upper Hutt can point to their 23-23 draw with Norths the last time they met in round six of last year's Jubilee Cup. In this they shot to a 20-10 hafltime lead and only missed out on the win when Popoalii kicked a late penalty to tie the scores.

The Terry Farrow Memorial Cup was donated by the Farrow family in memory of Terry Farrow, Past Life Member of Norths RFC who passed away in 1999. Terry was instrumental in the amalgamation of the Titahi Bay and Porirua clubs, which formed Norths in 1990. Terry's father, George was the first life member of the Upper Hutt club. Other family connections with Upper Hutt include Kerry Farrow, who was a long time player and captain of their premier side.

Down the road at Lyndhurst Park, it'll be simply a case of both sides needing to win or their hopes of playing in the Jubilee Cup later in the season could be evaporated right there and then. In order to make the top eight at the end of the Swindale Shield round, an absolute minimum of three wins in 11 first round matches will be required, and for one of these teams who will remain winless after four rounds (or both if it's a draw), the Hardham Cup preparations might already be underway at training next Tuesday. These two also sides play for the Forsyth Trophy.

Of the two, Tawa have been the least disappointing so far, narrowly losing to Old Boys-University (21-23), Marist St. Pat's (40-48) and Wainuiomata (32-35). As opposed to the Wests Roosters who also lost out to MSP (10-19), before stumbling against Avalon (3-31) and missing out to OBU (15-27) despite having two professional players in its pack in Ace Tiatia and Kane Thompson.

Meanwhile, there will be much interest at William Jones Park as the home team Wainuiomata will have one of its favourite sons in its ranks against Poneke.

Hurricanes and All Blacks superstar Piri Weepu will be making his much anticipated return from injury in this game, in his bid to quickly recover full fitness and shoot for higher honours again later this year. Weepu broke his ankle while playing for the Vodafone Wellington Lions against Taranaki in last year's ITM Cup.

Weepu's presence should be keenly felt by his teammates. Before this season, Wainuiomata had won just 13 of 44 games in the Swndale Shield since their reintroduction to the Premier level in 2007. With Weepu in the team they've won six from 10, and two of the four losses were against a rampant Norths side.

Wainuiomata and Poneke also play for the Hakaraia Trophy, which brings special significance to players and supporters of both teams, after the tragic death in a diving accident in January 2007 of Peter Hakaraia, the son of Paul who the trophy originally honoured. It is now played for in the memory of both Paul and son Peter. Paul was a lifelong associate of both the Poneke and Wainuiomata clubs. Wainuiomata are the current holders having tipped over Poneke 22-20 in this match last year, scoring an intercept try with five minutes to play that took them into the lead. Their win last year over the red and blacks was their first in Premier rugby since 2007 and was also Poneke's first loss of 2010 after four straight wins.

Yet another cracking game is predicted at the Polo Ground between home side Oriental-Rongotai and Marist St. Pat's, where unbeaten Ories will be out to continue its hot start to the year and MSP will be anxious to put a scratchy beginning behind them.

Ories have so far beaten Avalon (63-6), Hutt Old Boys Marist (14-10) and Upper Hutt (27-25), while MSP were far from convincing against Wests (19-10) and Tawa (48-40) before succumbing to Norths (10-48).

This corresponding fixture last year was a tight affair, with Ories holding on to win 33-32. In a tit-for-tat first half, MSP led 26-20. The match then came down to goalkicking and MSP's Fa'atonu Fili missed a long-range penalty attempt with the final scoring opportunity of the game.

However, MSP beat Ories 32-21 in their second match last year in the Jubilee Cup, giving them a four win-two loss record against the Miramar side in all matches since 2008. Fili has proved a key figure all five of these six games that he has played in, scoring 83 points in all.

Like MSP, Petone haven't had the most assured of starts to 2011 and will want to start firing on all cylinders when they host Old Boys-University at the Petone Recreation Ground.

Petone have had a solitary victory over Poneke (24-20) in week one, followed by two close losses to Upper Hutt (26-27) and HOBM (20-27) that has also seen them lose the Connelly Cup and McBain Shield from their trophy cabinet. OBU started with a narrow victory over Tawa (23-21), lost to Poneke (18-14) and then beat Wests (27-16).

Again, this corresponding match last year was a thriller, with scores locked at 20-20 at fulltime but OBU left rueing not being able to convert any of their four tries that they had scored out wide. Petone led 20-15 late in the contest, before the students scored their fourth five-pointer of the match. Petone won their return Jubilee Cup match 20-3, meaning OBU's last win over Petone was six matches ago in 2007.

The round's final encounter sees Hutt Old Boys Marist host Avalon at the Hutt Recreation Ground. Fresh from swatting off one Hutt Valley rival in Petone and winning back the McBain Shield, the Eagles turn their sights on another as they set about igniting their campaign.

HOBM grabbed their first win of the year last Saturday against Petone, while Avalon bounced back from their first round drubbing at the hands of Ories to beat Wests (31-3) and then push Poneke hard before losing 18-29. HOBM beat Avalon 45-7 the last time these sides clashed. Of their last five matches going back to the start of 2006, HOBM have won three, Avalon one and there has been one draw.

Meanwhile, Poneke, HOBM and MSP are the three unbeaten sides after the opening three weeks of the Senior 1 Harper Lock Shield competition.

On early season form, all three could well win again this weekend. MSP play Ories at the Polo Ground who have one win, Poneke play Paramata-Plimmerton at the Polo Ground, also with one win, and HOBM host winless Stokes Valley at the Hutt Rectration Ground.

In other matches, winless Tawa travel up the motorway to play Johnsonville who have one win from three, OBU (two wins) meet Petone (one win) away and Norths (one win) entertain Rimutaka (two wins) at Porirua Park.

Tawa and Johnsonville play for the The Carman Cup, named after Arthur Carman who was the first Patron of the Tawa RFC. He was also a member of the Johnsonville club. The trophy was first played for in 1952 and apart from one year (1994) it has been contested each year since. Tawa are the holders having beaten Johnsonville 65-27 in the Premier Swindale Shield last year.

MSP's Senior 2 National Mutual Cup side was defaulted to last week by Norths, and will welcome their outing against Wellington (one win), just a short walk from their clubrooms down at Hataitai Park.

MSP are one of four teams who have yet to taste defeat this year, but two of these unbeaten sides - Avalon and HOBM - clash this weekend at Fraser Park. The other, OBU, will fancy their chances of earning a fourth straight bonus point win when they travel to play winless Petone.

In other Senior 2 round four matches, Norths (one win) hosts Upper Hutt (two wins) at Porirua Park and bottom placed Johnsonville and the Wests Roosters fight it out for the Duncan Cup at Helston Park.

In the Premier women's Fleurs Trophy, champions Norths host MSP at Porirua, Petone host Eketahuna at Petone Rec and Wainuiomata welcome Stokes Valley over the hill at Mary Crowther Park.