Bay dancers to join Storm cheerleaders

Hawke's Bay-raised Storm star Tohu Harris

Four Hawke's Bay dancers will train with the Melbourne Storm cheerleaders preparing for their team's historic NRL rugby league match against Sydney club St George Illawarra Dragons at McLean Park in Napier on Saturday night.

The Melbourne entourage, flying into Hawke's Bay at 5.30pm today on a chartered Virgin Australia flight, includes eight of the glamour club's cheerleaders.

The four locals, who were last night still to be chosen from a group of 10 hopefuls, will join the visiting cheerleaders in pre-match rehearsals, among a schedule of events leading up to the game.

Events related to the game started yesterday with school visits by two advance-party Storm players, second row forward Dayne Weston, who has recently signed a two-year deal with England club Leigh, and hooker Slade Griffin. Neither is in the squad for the game.

Hawke's Bay-raised Storm star Tohu Harris, a second-row forward in most of his 67 matches for the Storm since his NRL debut against the Dragons in 2013, has been named at centre for the match, but will also have extra pre-match duties.

Tomorrow the New Zealand Kiwis test match international will visit youth academy Tu Ake in Hastings, and become an ambassador to the programme's 12 students.

All of the big names have been included in the team lists, including Storm Australian Kangaroos internationals Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Will Chambers and New Zealand internationals Harris, Kevin Proctor and Jesse Bromwich.

The Dragons will feature former Kiwis captain Benji Marshall, Kiwi international Jason Nightingale and Kangaroos test player Josh Dugan.

The match will be the first NRL game to be played in Hawke's Bay.

St George was one of the two founding clubs in the New South Wales rugby league competition when the game was introduced to Australia in 1908, when the sport was known as Northern Union.

It was just three years later, in 1911, that McLean Park was first used for rugby league for a match between Australia and New Zealand.

The ground had been secured for rugby league after being gifted to Napier but it became the home of rugby union, with no rugby league thought to have been played there from 1921 to 1989. The last major match at the ground was between Great Britain and a New Zealand President's XIII in 1990.