A hot start for Magpies in 2023 NPC

Hawke's Bay Magpies head coach Josh Syms, who will head home from a stint coaching in the US, to a busy start to the 2023 Bunnings NPC. Photo / Paul Taylor

The Hawke’s Bay Magpies will play four games in a full-on first 15 days of the Bunnings NPC rugby competition this year.

The Magpies, hoping to bounce back from a quarterfinal exit last year when beaten by eventual champions the Wellington Lions, who had also taken the Ranfurly Shield from Hawke’s Bay during the season, open the 14-team championship with a Saturday, August 5, 5.05pm kick-off against North Harbour at McLean Park, Napier. It will be the venue for three of those first four matches.

They then face three games in nine days with a 7.05pm kick-off against Counties Manukau on Friday, August 11, at Pukekohe, but return home for two games at the park, a Wednesday-night match against Waikato, and four days later a Sunday-afternoon match against Otago.

The other home games are back-to-back fixtures in September against neighbouring unions Bay of Plenty and Manawatu respectively.

The last of the 10 round-robin matches, against Wellington, in Wellington, on September 30, will be a Ranfurly Shield challenge if the Lions have survived six earlier defences, starting with non-championship matches against Heartland unions Horowhenua Kapiti and South Canterbury in July.

Wellington had one successful defence last year after claiming the trophy for the first time in 14 years with a 19-12 win over Hawke’s Bay in Napier.

With the NPC still unable to programme a full round robin in the time available, the Magpies will not play Canterbury, Tasman or Taranaki unless they meet in the playoffs.

Hawke’s Bay, which played the first-ever NPC first division match in 1976, has never reached the major championship’s final, and will be again under the watch of head coach Josh Syms, who is on a Northern Hemisphere stint in the American Major League Rugby Eastern Conference as head coach with Virginia-based Old Glory DC.

Old Glory opened with two losses, at home against Chicago Hounds and away against Rugby New York, but have bounced back into contention with wins over New England Free Jacks and Toronto Arrows, and recently acquired 34-year-old New Zealand Sevens representative Kurt Baker, who played in 12 matches for the Magpies in 2020, including regaining the Shield from Otago and successfully defending it three times, when Syms was assistant coach.

The Hawke’s Bay Magpies 2023 Bunnings NPC draw is: August 5 (Saturday), 5.05pm, v North Harbour, at Napier; August 11 (Friday), 7.05pm, v Counties Manukau, at Pukekohe; August 16 (Wednesday), 7.05pm, v Waikato, at Napier; August 20 (Sunday), 2.05pm, v Otago, at Napier; August 26 (Saturday), 2.05pm, v Auckland, at Auckland; September 1 (Friday), 7.05pm, v Northland, at Whangarei; September 9 (Saturday), 4.35pm, v Bay of Plenty, at Napier; September 15 (Friday), 7.05pm, v Manawatu, at Napier; September 23 (Saturday), 2.05pm, at Invercargill; September 30 (Saturday), 2.05pm, v Wellington, at Wellington.