A year before rugby league last appeared on Tremain Park, it thought it had found a future home on a Park Island Reserve extension, but the dream never materialised, and in 2013 it settled on the Regional Sports Park in Hastings.
But new chairman Anthony Taueki, who had less than a month in the hot seat before the 2024 season started in early September, found the sport growing to a point where it was outgrowing the facilities available at the ground, where rugby league has been able to run as an all-in whānau day for most of the last decade.
The regional park had four playing fields available for league and two changing rooms, and this year faced a clash with fields booked for touch (football) for some of its unique spring-season competition, which for almost 25 years has been played after the rugby union club season has ended.
Taueki, whose experience in leadership roles – including 12 years at the Clive Rugby Football club with a focus on its successful women’s teams, in addition to a professional career roles in governance aspects – made him a natural target when a new chairman was needed less than a month before the start of the Premier competition in September 5.
He says league is again feeling squeezed out, as has been the situation throughout much of Hawke’s Bay rugby league history, which dates back almost to the origins of the game in New Zealand in 1908. It was the second provincial league formed in New Zealand, was first given access to McLean Park in 1911, and for a period about 60-70 years ago was based at Rugby League Park, now long since replaced by residential development in the Napier suburban area which takes its name.
In 1989, the club finals were held at McLean Park as rugby league returned for the first time there in at least half a century. The last time a Hawke’s Bay club game was played there was in 2005, but there have been two NRL games at McLean Park in the last 10 years, including a capacity crowd for the New Zealand Warriors in 2023.
Stallions coach Graeme Su’a, a Taradale Rugby and Sports Club member brought up in Auckland, said he was lured to Hawke’s Bay by the “passion” he saw for the game in the area on a visit to Hawke’s Bay in about 2015, when he got to play a club game for the Phoenix.
Su’a played rugby league for the Glenora Bears and at the NRL’s Holden Cup age-group level, but having moved to Hawke’s Bay, and playing rugby for Taradale, this year he put to the club the idea of basing a team at Tareha Reserve.
With the club’s support, he says he put together a squad of players from Taradale and other rugby clubs and from within church connections, adding that it’s the young squad in the Premier competition.
In Saturday’s games, Omahu Hui, clear 20-6 at halftime, scored seven tries, with two to wing Amini Koroi and one each to Ausage Fomai, Peter Ainiu, Debden Keil, Petera Kahui-Ariki and Sakopa Ofa.
The Stallions were also clear at halftime, leading the Phoenix 24-10 and eventually scoring eight tries, with two each to Johnny Faleiva and 2024 Hawke’s Bay Magpies rugby squad member Meni Manase, and one each to Patrick Sam Lilo Iosefo Au, Misipati Lealaisanoa, David Tonga and Vincent Vo.
There were also four age-group semifinals at Tremain Field and five finals across the grades are planned for next Saturday.
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.
