Ōtiria Rugby Club players celebrate after winning the Bay of Islands Championship for the first time in 59 years. Photo / Supplied
Ōtiria Rugby Club players celebrate after winning the Bay of Islands Championship for the first time in 59 years. Photo / Supplied
A small Mid North community plans to pull out the stops this weekend as it celebrates the end of a trophy drought stretching back almost 60 years.
Last Saturday Ōtiria Rugby Club defied history by defeating Taiamai-Ōhaeawai 31-26 in the Bay of Islands Championship final at Ōhaeawai's home grounds.
The last time the boys from Ōtiria held the McGarry Shield was in 1961 — before most of the players' parents were born.
The win couldn't have come at a better time for Ōtiria.
It has been a tough year for the mostly Ngāti Hine settlement and neighbouring Moerewa, with road tragedies and a police manhunt which saw Moerewa School close its doors for three days.
To cap it off the settlement was hit by a devastating flood in July which swamped the uninsured rugby clubrooms and forced the cancellation of a gala day celebrating the unveiling of a carved scoreboard.
Ōtiria Rugby Club captain Hone Townsend and partner Pamela-Anne Ngohe-Simon with the club's new carved scoreboard. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Club member Pamela-Anne Ngohe-Simon, however, said this Sunday's victory celebration would be an event to remember for all the right reasons.
It would start with a parade, gathering in Pembroke St at 9.30am and setting off at 10am, down Otiria Rd to the clubrooms on Kingi Rd, with a blue Cadillac leading the way and a blue dump truck carrying "the boys" and the shield last held by Ōtiria in 1961.
The procession would include cars, trucks, motorcycles and possibly the odd horse, while blue and white balloons and ribbons would be everywhere.
Prizes would be awarded for the best-decorated fence in Ōtiria Rd as well as best home-made Covid face mask and best-dressed adult, child and vehicle.
"It's going to be a community event to remember for many, many years to come," Ngohe-Simon said.
The parade would be welcomed at the clubrooms with a haka at 10.30am followed by speeches and a sausage sizzle.
A raft of measures would be taken to comply with Covid alert level 2 restrictions and reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
They included a spread-out parade rather than having everyone at the grounds, holding the event outdoors instead of in the clubrooms, contact tracing, sanitising stations and QR codes.
Masks would be handed out at the gate and speeches would be strictly limited to reduce people's time on site.
Ngohe-Simon said when the semifinal was held at Ōtiria a few weeks ago the club kept a ''bubble'' of 100 people on the front field area and a second bubble of 100 on the back field.
''So I'm confident we can do it again,'' she said.
Ōtiria Rugby Club captain Hone Townsend at the clubrooms after July's flood. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Captain Hone Townsend said the club had a good run in the mid- to late-1930s, with three wins in a row.
"We had another good run in the mid- to late-1940s, then won it in 1955 and 1961," he said.
With Kerikeri and Moerewa United Kawakawa now playing in the Whangārei competition the McGarry Shield was contested this year by Ōkaihau, Ōtiria and Taiamai-Ōhaeawai.
