Napier Tech Old Boys patron and former Magpie Gary Kivell and "Uncle Norm", Hawke's Bay halfback in the first successful Hawke's Bay Ranfurly Shield challenge and defence. Photo / Warren Buckland
Whether they hold or lose the Ranfurly Shield, Hawke's Bay remain one of the most successful teams in the Log o' Wood's storied history.
But if it weren't for a few moments a century ago this week, the region may have simply been destined to be hopeful battlers.
The first of those moments was a telegram sent by Magpies coach Norman McKenzie to the Wellington Rugby Football Union requesting that a match against Wellington a few days hence on 1922 be also a challenge for the Ranfurly Shield.
It has been likened to an ambush in opposition territory, for McKenzie had been searching from Mahia to Dannevirke for the talent he required, unbeknown to the Wellington hierarchy.
According to some reports of the time Wellington was somewhat dismissive of the provinces and accepted a midweek challenge, despite the absence of famed Nicholls brothers Ginger and Mark and two others away with the All Blacks in Australia.
Thus, at Athletic Park and in front of 3000-4000 people, Hawke's Bay won the Shield, with a 19-9 win over Wellington on August 9 – 100 years ago on Tuesday this week.
Hawke's Bay led 11-3 at halftime, after 40 minutes dominated by the Bay forwards, led by Cyril Brownlie, whose brother, Maurice, was also with the All Blacks in Australia.
The second came when Hawke's Bay defended the Shield for the first time three and a half weeks later at Nelson Park, Hastings, on September 2, when but for Bay of Plenty goalkicker Noel Boucher's missing of the conversion of the game's last try would have seen the Shield dispatched on the coach to Rotorua and Tauranga for the first time.
Hawke's Bay, with two tries to Jack Kirwan, grandfather of 1980s Auckland star wing John Kirwan, beat Bay of Plenty 17-16, giving little hint that they would hold it for almost five years until a loss to Wairarapa on June 3, 1927 - a single-tenure record of 25 defences, beating by one the previous record set in Auckland's reign from 1906 to 1913.
Wellington had reason to feel robbed again, in Magpies defence No 4 at McLean Park in July 1923, scoring two unconverted three-point tries to Hawke's Bay's diverse kicking achievements in a dropped goal to Gordon Yates, a penalty goal to George Nepia, and a goal from a mark to Alex Kirkpatrick, one of them worth four points in a 10-6 win to the home side.
Less than three weeks later, there were signs of the future when the Magpies scored three (unconverted) tries to beat Canterbury 9-8, including one to wing Bert Grenside, who played 87 matches for Hawke's Bay from 1918 to 1931 and to this day hold the Magpies record of 70 tries in first class rugby.
Even a century later the significance of that 1922-1927 era seems to need to be clearly stated.
The sequence of defences was a record that lasted 36 years until 26 matches in 1960-1963, ended with a loss to Wellington which held it just a week.
That was a record at the other end of the scale for 50 years until 2013.
Hawke's Bay then went just six days with the Shield after ending a 44-year Shield drought with a win over Otago, before handing Counties-Manukau its first Shield win.
The record now is Auckland's 62 after the 28-23 win over Canterbury so-called from the 1985 shield Match of the Century (a title Magpies devotees might ascribe to arguably the more-famed Battle of Solway which Hawke's Bay won 21-10 in Masterton trying to regain the Shield in 1927).
The match was awarded by the NZRFU to Wairarapa on appeal because Hawke's Bay player Wattie Barclay was not, on residential grounds, eligible to have taken the field.
Hawke's Bay's 77-14 win over Wairarapa at McLean Park in 1926, with 17 three-point tries, equivalent to a 94-16 scoreline in modern-day pointscoring, was a record that stood for 57 years, until Canterbury beat North Otago 88-0 in 1983 (also 17 tries, at four points each).
Auckland broke that record with a 97-0 win over Thames Valley in 1986, and in 1993 set the current record with a 139-5 win over North Otago (in Oamaru and scoring 23 tries, at five points each).
As journalist and author Lindsay Knight records in "Shield Fever" Hawke's Bay was by 1926 beating even the country's strongest other unions.
Wairarapa had six players who had been or were to become All Blacks, and in the weeks after their humiliation 13 tries were run-in in a 58-8 thrashing of Wellington (Bernside scoring five tries) and nine more came in a 41-11 win over Auckland.
Two trains carrying 1500 Wellington supporters came to Napier in anticipation of the Shield heading to Wellington for a fourth time.
The Bay boldly took the Shield to Christchurch at the end of the season, safely defending it with a 17-15 win in what was the first Ranfurly Shield match at Lancaster Park, and the Magpies' last Shield win before losing it to Wairarapa the following June.
It was a dominance unmatched or surpassed in Ranfurly Shield rugby other than in Auckland's 1985-1993 era, in which, it needs to be recorded, Auckland beat Hawke's Bay 56-18 in 1987, 62-9 in 1988, 40-9 in 1992, and 69-31 in 1993, the 1988 and 1992 matches both being in Napier.
Even Hawke's Bay's reign of 22 defences after winning it from Waikato with a 6-0 win in Hamilton in 1966 was nowhere as dominant, there being two draws (12-12 against Wellington in 1967 and 9-9 against Auckland a year later), one match won by just a point (9-8 against Otago in 1967) and one by just two points (a controversial 10-8 victory over North Auckland just 17 days before the Shield was finally farewelled in 1969).
During the latest Magpies shield era, the Magpies have overtaken Waikato and recemented their place as the third most successful union in Ranfurly Shield matches, behind only Auckland and Canterbury.
The two big Hawke's Bay eras included and produced many All Blacks – the Brownlie brothers, Bert Grenside, Bert Cooke, Goerge Nepia, Kirkpatrick, Jimmy Mill, Jack Blake, Tom Corkill, Lui Paewai, Sam Gemmell, Bull Irvine and Jack Ormond in the 1920s, and Kel Tremain, Ian MacRae, Bill Davis, Blair Furlong, Neil Thimbleby, etc in the 1960s – significantly also the two most successful All Blacks eras (Memo: Ian Foster) before the advent of the Rugby World Cup in 1987.
Among those not so famed was halfback Norm Kivell who had come from Taranaki to play for Pirates in Napier and who played in that first win at Athletic Park, the first defence and several other defences.
He was an uncle of current Napier Tech Old Boys patron, club museum curator Gary Kivell, who played eight games for Hawke's Bay in 1963, at wing, fullback and centre, but, alas, not in a 3-3 draw Ranfurly Shield challenge draw with Auckland. His father, Brian, also played for Hawke's Bay, and for Pirates.
This week, Gary Kivell proudly displayed a photo of his uncle, noting the family was statistically-speaking always going to produce a few rugby players. There were about 15 children in the family's arrival in New Zealand in the 1840s, and his father and uncle were among "10-12" siblings, all boys.
Without such things as a radio commentary or TV, supporters in Hawke's Bay on August 9, 1922, had to wait for the message sent by the same method as the original application for a challenge – by telegram.
The Hawke's Bay Tribune reported "not for many years has Napier seen such a display of interest" as that when it awaited news of the result.
Before 4pm a crowd started gathering outside JR Ross and Co for the announcement, ever-anxious with a promised halftime report not eventuating and the ultimate outcome somewhat late.
By the time it did come, there were over 500 people, and in Hastings fans went from a match between Hastings and East Coast to the Tribune offices, in both cases news coming via telegrams of congratulations – apparently without the score.
Hastings man running for mayor has brushed off a jibe from one of his fellow councillors.