Hawke's Bay club rugby preview: McLean Park awaits for all, so who will step up?

Southern Hawke's Bay club Aotea in their moment of glory, with vanquished opponents Otane, after the Hawke's Bay Division 1 Country final last month. Photo / Supplied

Napier Old Boys Marist coach Ellery Wilson is confident his side is ready for one of its bigger challenges trying to get one back in inter-city rugby rivals Hastings Rugby and Sports in a key Maddison Trophy Round 4 match in Napier on Saturday.

OBM will have home-ground advantage, the game being used to mark 21 years since the opening of its clubrooms, which completed a shift from McLean Park and a merger of top clubs Marist Brothers Old Boys and Napier High School Old Boys at the end of 1990.

HSOB had won the Maddison Trophy when it was first decided in a grand final in 1988, and Marist won the following year, before losing the 1990 final to fellow Napier club Technical.

Both clubs had trained at McLean Park, with separated clubrooms, each now demolished - HSOB with stand-alone headquarters off Latham St and Marist with clubrooms in the old McKenzie Stand.

The move from McLean Park was encouraged by the Napier City Council as it sought to preserve McLean Park for major regional, national and inter-national events.

The new club did not reach a Maddison Trophy final until 2001, when it claimed a single-point win over Havelock North. It won again in 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2019.

Wilson highlighted that since the latest triumph two years ago OBM had been dominated by both Hastings R&S and Taradale, the finalists in both last season's Maddison Trophy decider and this season's Nash Cup showdown.

Marist did however beat Hastings, by two points, in the final of the four-team Spillane Cup top division of the North Island Marist tournament in Taupo in mid-March, but Hastings won 30-26 in the clubs' Nash Cup pool match four weeks later.

The clubrooms anniversary is one of several club rugby milestones being celebrated in Hawke's Bay rugby this season, the most notable being the Napier Tech Old Boys centennial next week, postponed a year because of the Covid-19 crisis.

Celebrations for Hastings Rugby and Sports after its win in April. Will Napier OBM turn the tables on Saturday? Photo / File

Tech play Hastings in the feature match of that celebration, but this weekend face a big test against Nash Cup winner Taradale, at Taradale, Tech needing a win in one two games particularly crucial to the make-up of the semi-finals Top 4.

In the other crucial 6th-placed Central host 4th-placed Clive in Waipukurau, while MAC have home-ground advantage over Tamatea in their match at Flaxmere Park, each side without a win in the Maddison Trophy round.

In Senior Division 1, a big turnout is expected at Dannevirke's Rugby Park for the match between unbeaten sides home-team Aotea and visitor Havelock North.

Each has won 3 from 3 in the championship round, both having experienced the most dramatic of form reversals in their club histories.

Aotea has won 20 in a row since struggling through the 2019 season losing all 10 Division 2 games, including at least 2 by default.

It's successes since then include going unbeaten through 12 matches in the shortened last season and winning the Division 2 final for the Arthur Bowman Cup, which it retained by winning this season's first-round Division 1 Country competition in a reformatting of Hawke's Bay rugby's top grades.

It'll be a big day at Rugby Park amid a rugby revival in Southern Hawke's Bay also involving the Dannevirke club, which plays in the Manawatu Rugby Union competitions in which it is defending Division 2 champion and first-round competition winner. All three fields will be in use.

By contrast, former long-time prominent Maddison Trophy Premier club Havelock North lost all 5 Premier Nash Cup games earlier this season, and was relegated, but its top side has bounced back in the lower division with an average of more than 54 points a game and an average winning margin of more than 40 in the lower division.

Aotea club captain and Senior team manager Bryan Te Huki the revival was not so much planned as developing from a commitment to the club and coach Carl Withey, with the influence of two significant players in its own Aotea-Havelock North, which dates back famously to 1960s Ranfurly Shield star halfback Hepa Paewai's move from Aotea to Havelock North to further his career in inter-city football.

Now there's father and son Jarrod and Jacob Stephenson, who each had the biggest of their playing years in the Havelock North colours, Jacob transferring this season and travelling from work in the Napier-Hastings area for training and games.

The quest for both teams is promotion to and back to Premier by being Division 1 final, which is now set to be part of what could be possibly the biggest celebration of club rugby in the history of the 127-years-old Hawke's Bay Rugby Union.

The union will stage its Premier, Senior 1, 2, and 3, and Colts finals at McLean Park, Napier, on the Friday and Saturday of July 16-17, the first time all the finals have been staged at a single venue since semi-final and finals rugby was introduced in 1988.

Following semi-finals in all Senior and Colts grades on July 10, when home advantage will go to the upper-ranked sides, 2 of the finals will be played at Mclean Park on the following Friday night, and the other 3 on the park the next day.