Joe Johnston will skipper Te Puke Sports in the this season's Baywide competition.
Joe Johnston will skipper Te Puke Sports in the this season's Baywide competition.
A lack of grunt up front has seen Rangiuru Sports drop out of this season’s Baywide Rugby competition that starts on Saturday.
Rangiuru will, however, be one of the 13 teams in the Western Bay senior men’s competition, alongside Te Puke Sports’ development side, Eastern Districts and Pāpāmoa.
Te Puke Sports will be the district’s only team in this year’s top tier of Baywide rugby and will start the campaign with an away game at Greerton Marist on Saturday.
Last season’s player-coach Matt Wallis is back at the helm, but has now hung up his boots after playing 222 games for the club.
He is pleased to have a number of former players return, including Joe Johnston, who will captain the side, and Declan Barnett who have both had stints playing overseas. Brad Armstrong, who missed much of last season through injury, is also back.
Barnett is starting the season with an injury, and Johnston will be reuniting with his brother Alex, a member of last season’s Bay of Plenty Steamers squad.
“We’ve got a good mixture with a lot of new players and it’s pretty exciting for the club to have an influx of new players,” says Wallis.
“We’ve also got four players in the Chiefs Under 20s this year, so that’s promising.”
A Bay of Plenty Rugby Union initiative has meant that several Fijian players are also on the Te Puke Sports’ books for 2024.
“They’ve added something different to the club.”
Two pre-season games against Morrinsville and Hamilton Marist resulted in two wins.
“We’ve had a pretty promising pre-season, but it doesn’t mean anything really.”
Declan Barnett is back in Te Puke Sports colours for 2024.
After reaching the semifinals, but losing to Te Puna, last season, Wallis says he has not yet set any specific goals with the team, but does have one eye on next season when there is a strong possibility there will be two tiers to the Baywide competition, with eight teams in each.
“The goal is always to win the competition but for me the real goal is keeping the team in the competition because next year it’s looking like it could drop to eight teams.
“We’d love to get to the final but we’ll see how it goes - we just don’t know what those other clubs are like, that will start on Saturday.”
Club president Tyler Keenleyside says it is sad that both Rangiuru and Rotoiti will be missing from this year’s Baywide competition.
“It sucks to see them struggling, but we are really excited. We’ve got three strong men’s teams [premiers, development and colts] and our women’s team kicked off [at the] weekend which we are really excited about.”
The club’s new women’s team had a difficult start to their campaign, losing heavily at Ngongotahā on Sunday in the women’s championship.
New lights have been installed at Murray Salt Stadium which could mean more night games and creates the possibility, down the track, of the club hosting NPC games.
Rangiuru Sports Club president Makuini Te Amo says 2024 will be a rebuilding season for the club’s premier team.
“Although we have a fantastic backline, we do not have enough props to hold up the team in the forwards,” she says.
She believes the most pragmatic thing is to have a season in the Western Bay senior men’s competition and rebuild to challenge for a place in the Baywide competition next season.
“We absolutely and definitely do not want to remain in that division and we will work hard towards building to get us back into Baywide.”
The Western Bay senior competition got under way last weekend but Rangiuru was playing in the final round of the separate, pre-season Rosebowl competition, so will have their first game this Saturday at Pāpāmoa.
Paengaroa-based Eastern Districts, however, did open their season last Saturday, hosting and beating Judea, 43-5.
Premier team coach Jason Marra says the first team has got a strong squad with good numbers of players coming along to pre-season training.
There were pre-season wins over Taneatua and Matata
“We had a couple of successful pre-season games, and we are looking pretty good.”
With 13 teams in the Western Bay competition, he thinks the season will be “pretty competitive”.
“Obviously every team wants to win and it’s a pretty competitive sport and the most competitive sports draw the most competitive people, but the intention from my perspective is, I’d like to see a bit of silverware at the end of the season.”
Next Saturday Eastern Districts travel to play Mount Maunganui, the team they lost to in last year’s semifinal.
“That’s always a pretty big game - last year when we played them we lost both of the games, but only just.”
This weekend’s games;
Saturday, April 13
Baywide premiership. Te Puke Sports v Greerton Marist, at Greerton. Kick off 2.45pm.
Western Bay senior men’s: Te Puke Sports v Greerton at Greerton, 1pm; Rangiuru v Pāpāmoa at Gordon Spratt Reserve, Pāpāmoa, 1pm, Eastern Districts at Blake Park Mount Maunganui. 1pm.
