Sciascia enjoying being back in Wellington Premier rugby

Above: Peter Sciascia on the charge against Upper Hutt in 2008, the year he helped MSP win the Swindale Shield-Jubilee Cup double in his first season with the club. Back from a year off, he's aleady made his mark on the 2012 competition and more silverware beckons.

It's no coincidence that when Peter Sciascia is on the field the rugby's invariably exciting.

The livewire halfback, who has recently returned from back-to-back seasons playing club rugby in Northern Ireland, has made an immediate impact in the three full Swindale Shield games he's played so far in 2012.

Against Wests, he stole the ball from the back of a scrum and dived over to score the match winning try, against Wainuiomata he sliced through several defenders to score a big try in a tight match and against Upper Hutt he made several darts at the line before his offload on the line set up a key try that was scored by Issac O'connor.

Sciascia is enjoying being back and playing for MSP, whose top two sides go into this week's penultimate round of first round Premier Swindale Shield and Senior 1 Harper Lock Shield matches already safely through to the respective Jubilee and Hardham Cups for the second round.

"For me it's a whole new team and its refreshing coming back to play with some fresh ideas and to experience a few things that I haven't really been around for the last couple of years," Sciascia said.

He said team spirit and competition for places are key reasons for MSP's solid year to date.

"There's competition amongst our squad, which is a nice thing to have because you are never comfortable," he explained.

"I came back and I had to play in the thirds for a week, and then sit on the bench for the Premiers and also I played a game for the seconds. So it took me a good couple of weeks to come back.

"It's a good atmosphere, everyone's turning up, everyone's keen and no one is taking anything for granted."

Sciascia just about jumped off the plane from Ireland and went straight to training. "I came back in the first week of May and I came straight to training that night so that I could play on Saturday."

After seven consecutive seasons playing Swindale Shield and Jubilee Cup rugby, first for Avalon (2004-2007) and then for MSP (2008-2010), Sciascia moved to All-Ireland Division 2 club Rainey.

"I went and played for Rainey Old Boys, which is in Magherafelt 30 minutes out of Belfast. That was a whole new experience for me. The team was totally different to here because there were a lot of guys who were married and had played for the club for 10-15 years.

"We've got Kas Lealamanua in the MSP team here - but we had about five or six Kas's playing for Rainey!"

He said a big plus of playing there was the travel. "We got to travel the length of the country and I got to see a lot of Ireland through rugby. "We went down to Cork a couple of times and to Dublin, so it was a really good experience."

He had a successful time of it on the field as well. "We had a really good two years. In a 15-team competition, the best they'd ever previously finished was 10^th and we finished ?fifth in the first year and fourth in the second year and were right in the mix until the end in both seasons."

From the Hawke's Bay, he played two seasons in the Napier Boys' High School First XV that were national champions in 2002 and runners-up in 2003, alongside players such as Bryn Evans, Colin Bourke and Poneke's Ally Paine and Robbie Schaw, the latter also playing cricket for Central Districts and Wellington.

After school he moved to Wellington and hooked up with a then strong Avalon club. At the time Avalon were looking for a new halfback and they gave him the opportunity to play Premier rugby. "Another big reason in going there was to play inside their Hawke's Bay and East Coast NPC representative first five-eighth Mano Flutey and learn off him."

With teammates who also included Scott and Thomas Waldrom, Mahonri Schwalger and veteran lock and captain Jason Goble, Avalon played a hugely attractive brand of rugby in 2004 and were favoured to make the Jubilee Cup final. Instead, they lost their home semi-final at Fraser Park to a fired up Poneke 6-17.

Avalon remained a Jubilee Cup side in 2005 and 2006 before dropping away to the foot of the table in 2007.

Nevertheless, Sciascia himself was on fire, regularly picking up Player of the Day accolades, and in 2006 was a clear winner of that season's Billy Wallace Best and Fairest competition.

He rates this as a career highlight. "Apart from making Wellington age grades sides, winning that is definitely my highlight of playing rugby down here. Some of the names that were on that like Hika Reid and Scott Waldrom who had won it just prior to me make that a special achievement for me."

In his first season at MSP in 2008 he won the Swindale Shield and shared the Jubilee Cup with Norths when they drew 10-10 in the final at Westpac Stadium. The following year they beat Norths outright in the final, Sciascia joining illustrious company in recent times of players such as Tamati Ellison and TJ Perenara in being voted the Player of the Final and winning the Jim Brown Medal. He rates this as his second highest personal achievement after winning the Billy Wallace competition.

Fast-forwarding to 2012, Sciascia said he'd love to be in the mix for another championship title, but first must negotiate a really close competition.

"It's a strange one really because the years I played before I went away it was always the top six and then you'd have the bottom six fighting it out. But now you don't even know who the top six is so it's totally different at the moment."

MSP play Tawa this Saturday at Lyndhurst Park in a match he agreed that few fans would want to predict the outcome of after Tawa's 30-point win over Petone in round nine.

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