The future of YMP — the home team (green) line up with the Wairoa Athletic manuhiri after the Under 7s Rippa Rugby at the YMP Rugby and Sport's Club's day at Raupunga on Saturday. Photo / Connull Lang
The future of YMP — the home team (green) line up with the Wairoa Athletic manuhiri after the Under 7s Rippa Rugby at the YMP Rugby and Sport's Club's day at Raupunga on Saturday. Photo / Connull Lang
When it comes to adversity and reversal, Napier-Wairoa road stop Raupunga has possibly seen it all, New Zealand style.
But, amid the days of near-blanket loss of work opportunities as the Ministry of Works and the Railways Department ceased having local work gangs several decades ago and the social issues that stemmed from it, there was always a shining light in the survival, albeit struggling, of rugby club YMP.
Head coach Guy Taylor, whose team won their Hawke's Bay senior division three match against Taradale at the YMP Rugby and Sports Club Day. Photo / Connull Lang
Last year they were cranking up for another season when Cyclone Gabrielle stuffed it by closing the road to Napier, and as this season started, their game in Hastings was called off and a van driven by “head coach” Guy Taylor and carrying players heading home was shot at before it left town.
Kristella Joe turns on the pace against Wairoa Athletic. Photo / Connull Lang
However, only a few months later the club, established in 1956 and which has repositioned itself this year as YMP Rugby and Sports, had its first club day last Saturday.
In recent weeks it has registered about 130 children in rugby, netball and basketball.
William Culshaw has become chairman of YMP Rugby and Sports Club as it charts a new future for sports in Raupunga. Photo / Connull Lang
There are hopes rugby and netball training lights will be in place at the domain overlooked by Te Huki Marae off Putere Rd and only a few hundred metres off State Highway 2, and some clearing of land has already taken place for the possible shifting of a nearby building on to the domain as a club facility.
Ged Aranui is the YMP Rugby and Sports Club president, after more than 40 years with the club, and is now letting the younger brigade take over. Photo / Connull Lang
Veteran Taylor, and now president Ged Aranui, and younger leaders such as team captain and 2017 Ahuwhenua Young Farmer of the Year award winner Jordan Biddle, and new committee chairman William Culshaw, a son of shearing contractors Boy and Ngaire Culshaw, says it’s a start.
But it’s a good start, highlighted by the turnout on Saturday when four children’s rugby teams played teams from Napier Pirate and Wairoa Athletic, and the club also fielded two children’s netball teams and two ladies teams.
YMP player Rico Colqhaun heads for the try line in the Under 7s match with Wairoa Athletic. Photo / Connull Lang
The crowning glory was the Senior rugby side’s five-tries-to-two 31-10 win over Taradale in the Hawke’s Bay third division, which YMP now leads with three wins from four games, sparking memories of the club’s back-to-back winning of the competition’s Ron Parker Memorial Cup in 2016-17 and, for some, a trek to Napier for a cup final win at McLean Park more than 30 years go.
Aranui, who has had about 43 years with the club since returning from high school in Auckland at the age of 17, agreed to hang on as president as a younger committee was established, and was watching the children’s rugby: “This is the first time we’ve had a club day, and this is probably the biggest number [of players] we’ve ever had.”
YMP Ladies netballer Usha Tawera (left) squares off with Wairoa Athletic's Hope Tahuri. Photo / Connull Lang
Reflecting on the drive for younger people to take over, he said: “We’ve talked about this for years, but we never did anything about it.”
He’d seen the struggle for numbers many times, as the Senior side fielded youngsters wanting to play on the same team as Dad, or picked up players from the side of the road as they tried to make up numbers going to such distant fields as Dannevirke or Pōrangahau, appreciating that to have a competition there have to be teams, and defaulting was not an option.
“We’ve been to Dannevirke with 11 players, but it always came together,” he said. “One time we stopped and picked up a guy on the road. We asked him if he played rugby, but he didn’t. But we didn’t have a guitar, and he did … so he played the guitar.”
William Culshaw, who also coaches one of the children’s teams, feels the community coming in behind the club again, and says: “We’ve done quite a bit in a short time.”
Sid Ropitini, who coaches the Wairoa sub-union team but lives “down in the Bay”, had come to watch his “moko” and says: “This is cool. It’s just what the community needs.”
Jordan Biddle, the YMP Senior 3 captain who has sparked the revival in club fortunes. Photo / Connull Lang
Biddle had a stint with Taradale and returned with ambitions for YMP’s future, and for the Senior rugby team if it could get players together for training, and Taylor has seen the benefits, with 20-25 training 5pm-6pm, using car headlights to light up the field if necessary.
Not used to such numbers, he points to the chest of his green tracksuit and highlights it says “head” coach, because that’s what he asked for, to distinguish himself from the other 20-30 “coaches” on the paddock.
* Ged Aranui says YMP has its origins in a team known as Waipapa. YMP stands for Young Māori Players, not to be confused with Gisborne club YMP (Young Māori Party).
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
