Rugby: Four Hawke’s Bay players head for Junior World Champs

Harry Godfrey of the New Zealand Under 20s makes a run during the Australia test at Sky Stadium in Wellington. Photo / Photosport

Four Hawke’s Bay players have been named in the New Zealand team for the 13th World Under 20 Rugby Championships in South Africa from June 24-July 14.

They are fullback and first five-eighths Harry Godfrey, Cooper Flanders, Hunter Morrison, and Tom Allen.

All played in a two-test series against the Junior Wallabies last week.

Godfrey, a former Wanganui Collegiate pupil who came to Waipukurau club Central in 2021, making his NZ Under 20 that year, his Hawke’s Bay Magpies debut last year and Hurricanes Super Rugby debut this year, was rated the star player as New Zealand won 19-18 on Saturday, avenging a 34-26 defeat a few days earlier.

Flanders, brother of Magpies and Hurricanes player and former national Under 20 representative Devan Flanders, plays in Hawke’s Bay for Havelock North, Morrison has moved from Manawatu to play for Taradale, and Tom Allen was in the Hawke’s Bay Under 18 forwards last year with his twin brother, also plays for Havelock North.

Flanders and Allen each played for the Hastings Boys’ High School first XV.

Meanwhile, the Hawke’s Bay men’s and women’s squad each won pre-NPC King’s Birthday hit-outs against Manawatu counterparts at Rugby Park, Dannevirke.

Wind and rain prevailed during the Tui’s first outing for new coach Sione Cherrington-Kite, preparing for Hawke’s Bay’s return to the Farah Palmer Cup Premiership, after winning the championships division last year.

The Hawke’s Bay side won 38-0 against a Manawatu team missing most of the players regularly involved in their Cyclones premiership team, but the Hawke’s Bay side were also testing several younger players.

New Magpies coach Brock James lined-up separate 15s in each half of his squad’s game, the Bay winning 31-19 after leading 19-7 at halftime.

The women’s squads will meet again on June 24, and the Tui are hoping to play Wellington Pride on July 8.

Cherrington-Kite said that on Monday the opportunity for players to get game time after a short club season, along with the fact the players seemed unfazed by the tough conditions, were more important than the score.

In another King’s Birthday match, the Central Hawke’s Bay men’s sub-union side were well-beaten by NPC Heartland union Wairarapa Bush in the first match of the season for each side in Waipukurau on Monday.

Wairarapa Bush scored six tries in each half to win 74-12, retaining the Stu Smith Memorial Trophy, that was first contested last year, when Wairarapa Bush won 38-8 in Masterton.

CHB are also providing pre-competition opposition for Heartland unions East Coast and Horowhenua Kapiti later in the season.

On Saturday, the Hastings Boys’ High School First XV opened their Super 8 schools season by being beaten 25-15 by Palmerston North Boys’ High in Hastings.

The big annual match between Hastings and Napier Boys’ High Schools is on Saturday at Napier BHS, with the hosts the favourites on form, having already won away Super 8 matches against Gisborne BHS and the formidable Rotorua BHS.