Mt Aroha stands over the big clash between the C.O.B.R.A.S. and Waihou. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Mt Aroha stands over the big clash between the C.O.B.R.A.S. and Waihou. Photo / Brett Phibbs
It’s derby week in Te Aroha, where the best of enemies meet for one of grassroots rugby’s most coveted trophies.
The mercury hovered between bloody cold and freezing as Cobras captain and halfback Mike Smith's bark snapped the team out of its post-training reverie.
"We stand here in the same f****** huddle talking the same f***** shit every week, but this week is different," he said, to knowing nods and glances.
Different? Sure, to the other 51 weeks of the year. Exactly the same, though, as every year since 1959, when C.O.B.R.A.S. - College Old Boys Rugby and Sports - were formed out of the ruins of four Te Aroha clubs to begin their rivalry with Waihou RC, the area's most established club.
The Waihou ( Waihou Rugby & Sports Club) training ground at Waihou, Waikato. Photo / Brett Phibbs
They play each year for the Dr Dunn Trophy. It is Te Aroha's invisible wall, their Mason-Dixon line. The segregation, however, is not based on race, religion or class, but simply whether you wear the maroon-and-gold of Waihou or the blue of Cobras.
"I'd call it a healthy disrespect," says Steve Hale, who doubles as Boyd Park ground announcer and local marriage celebrant. He recently woke to a Guinness hangover and a new job - co-club captain of Cobras.
Of the Dr Dunn trophy, he says: "It divides work mates and even families. I know families where the wife is Waihou and the old man is Cobras.
"Generally speaking, they're considered a rural club and we're the townies. There're definitely a few more tit-pullers down there."
Down there is 4.6km southwest as the crow flies, the distance between the two clubrooms. Although the Waihou River runs through Te Aroha (it was for a long time the most loathed river in New Zealand, as Aucklanders queued in their thousands in urban attack vehicles to cross the one-lane Kopu Bridge to access the Coromandel Peninsula), the township of the same name is slightly removed.
It has a pub, a community hall and a tyre shop. The clubrooms neighbour the pub and look more inviting. On Thursday, ute after ute rolls into the carpark for the last practice before the Big Game.
C.O.B.R.A.S. senior rugby team during training at Boyd Memorial Park, Te Aroha, Waikato. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Coach Matt Bartleet is already placing cones on their practice field. ("They call it a field, we call it a sheep pen," says Paul Farac, aka Dally, who's in charge of feeding the Cobras players after training.)
Bartleet is a lump of a man, a former Waihou prop who started his coaching career with the Thames Valley Swamp Foxes before dropping down to club level. He's proud of the club's rural roots and assures us he's not joking when he mentions one or two of his team are being paid in pigs.
His message to his team as they gather in their breeze-block changing rooms is universal: focus, concentrate on the details, this is their last chance to tighten a few nuts and bolts before the Dr Dunn goes on the line.
C.O.B.R.A.S. senior rugby team during training at Boyd Memorial Park, Te Aroha, Waikato. Photo / Brett Phibbs
They beat Cobras, the Thames Valley defending champions and holders of the Dunn for the past five years, in round one. The trophy is only up for grabs in the Championship round and despite the earlier result, they're going in as underdogs.
"Leave the ball alone in the tackle area," Bartleet exhorts. "Get up and get ready to tackle again. We do not want to get into a fight with [referee] John Dustow on Saturday and watch their No 10 kick 20 points."
Out the players trot, one dragging deeply on a cigarette, past a stack of tyres. "The boys saw the Super 15 guys flipping tyres one day and thought they'd have some of that," Bartleet laughs. "It's not too difficult for us to get hold of tractor tyres."
One of the sideline eyes, a farmer, is talking to his mate about a chat he had with his accountant that morning. It hadn't gone well. Plummeting milkfat prices mean he's on the hook for a $50,000 loss this year. He's just thankful he's a Tatua supplier and not Fonterra, as his losses would be bigger.
"Asset rich, cash poor," he says with a rueful smile.
A scrum machine at the Waihou ( Waihou Rugby & Sports Club) training ground at Waihou, Waikato. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Up the road at Boyd Park, which the two clubs share for matches, Cobras, under Justin 'Jack' Burge, look a little less homespun, a little more polished.
After Smith's earthy speech, Burge delivers a few words that resonate with confidence before the players head in for dinner - roast lamb and spuds. It might seem gratuitous to mention the menu, but for a while, a certain dinner was the subject of much town chatter.
Legend has it that when Waihou hosted Cobras in the first round, the visitors were invited up for their meal and received mince. When it was Waihou's turn to eat, they had devilled sausages.
"It was the talk of the town for about six weeks," Hale says.
On such offal matters, the bonds of enmity are made stronger.
YOU CAN only speculate on what Leo Charles Dunn would make of his legacy. According to Waihou stalwart Grant Dickey, the good doctor was in his car on his way to a call-out - a pregnant woman was possibly going into labour too early - when he was struck by a freight train at the town's crossing.
That was 1949. Between 1950 and 1959 the trophy was played for between all the clubs of the Te Aroha sub-union, but by 1959 just two remained.
Every now and then there is loose talk of these two clubs merging but nobody really wants to see it happen - there's too much fun to be had in hating the other lot.
"If we were to merge, whichever clubrooms were kept, well that club would just eat up the other one," Dickey says. "And culturally I think we're just too far apart."
The Boyd Memorial Park, Te Aroha, Waikato. Photo / Brett Phibbs
On a nice day, the approach to town is arresting, with the 952m tall Mt Te Aroha providing a postcard backdrop. Opinion is split as to whether the massive TV transmitter perched at the summit adds or detracts from the aesthetics, but those old enough can remember looking up and seeing the Italian steeplejacks swinging from its framing while it was being erected.
It's not the areas only connection to Europe: a post-war settlement scheme attracted many Dutch families to the area, including that of Karl van der Heyden, a Waihou legend who is a maternal uncle of Keith Robinson, one of Cobras three All Blacks, along with Carl Hoeft and Kevin Schuler, whose surnames give away their Germanic heritage.
(Incidentally, all three assist Burge at various times during the season. "Not bad resource coaches, eh?" he laughs.)
Watch: Waihou v C.O.B.R.A.S - Preparing for the big game
The town's Edwardian domain is home to the world's only hot soda water spring and the mineral pools attract their share of visitors, and the racecourse is still in fine nick (60s star Battle Heights is the town's most famous horse), but weekend tourism and racing come a distant second and third to agribusiness in sustaining the population of 4000.
There are five meat and poultry processing plants within shouting distance of town, the biggest being Silver Fern Farms flagship plant.
It is at these plants where the rivalry is most keenly felt.
"It's about bragging rights," Hale and Dickey echo. Monday is not a pleasant day if you're on the wrong side of the Dr Dunn result.
SATURDAY DAWNS crisp and fine, defying the forecasted showers.
"College Old Boys weather," says one sideline punter, "we'll run them off their f***ing feet." It's a pithy assessment both Burge and Bartleet would tentatively agree with.
Waihou would have loved a bog, where their dominant scrum could constrict the Cobras and neuter their superior backline. It's not to be.
The fire alarm sounds in town as one of the Cobras management team sprints from the ground to his car. This is a town of sirens. Every weekday at 8am, noon, 1pm and 5pm a horn sounds to frame the working day.
The B teams kick off at 12.15, playing for the Dr Lawrence Trophy. It doesn't take long for the days first drama to occur, with 18-year-old flanker Callum Hayes facing the painful sensation of having his left kneecap facing west while the rest of his leg pointed north. Waihou physio Joel van Doorn is on hand to pop the dislocated bone back into place - a rare moment of inter-club co-operation.
Holders Waihou look stronger across the park and deserve their 13-12 win.
Fourteen-man Cobras have a chance to win it at the death, but leave a not-too-taxing 35m penalty about, erm, 15m short. The Dr Lawrence will be staying put.
The grandstand fills for the main event. Supporters gather along the far touchline and the dead-ball lines. An old man approaches before whispering conspiratorially: "These two clubs really hate each other. Waihou are good, solid farming people, but these Cobras' supporters are terrible."
The Waihou senior rugby team prepare at the Waihou ( Waihou Rugby & Sports Club) training ground. Photo / Brett Phibbs
C.O.B.R.A.S. senior rugby team captain Mike Smith leads his team out on the field. Photo / Brett Phibbs
He would be pleased, then, to see Waihou start well and win the early territory game. They're turning down shots at goal in favour of lineout drives mainly because they don't have a reliable kicker and also because it's where they know they have the edge on Cobras.
"We score all our points from lineout drives," says Karyn Vincent, Waihou matron, with only the slightest hint of exaggeration.
At one stage the Waihou first-five Ryan Waite drops a difficult pass. "Why are you giving it to the bloody backs for," yells one supporter.
C.O.B.R.A.S. and Waihou rugby teams, during the Dr Dunn Memorial Trophy match held at Boyd Memorial Park. Photo / Brett Phibbs
A disagreement between C.O.B.R.A.S. and Waihou rugby players. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Yet another disagreement between C.O.B.R.A.S. and Waihou rugby players. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The Cobras score with their first decent bit of possession, a sweeping move finished with a quality in-and-away by centre Credence Tui.
This establishes a pattern that rarely changes. Waihou try to keep it tight. Cobras are just a little too quick, a little too slick to let that happen.
***
IN THEIR heyday under the leadership of former cricket and basketball international Don Beard, Te Aroha College fielded seven rugby teams, now they have two. Any player with talent is enticed to the moneyed Waikato schools like Hamilton Boys' High, or St Paul's and St Peter's.
Watch: Game day - Waihou v C.O.B.R.A.S
"When Carl Hoeft was at school, we came within six point of Hamilton Boys'," says Hale.
It is a familiar lament in the provinces and there are no easy answers to arrest the decline. In many respects, it makes the Dr Dunn even more remarkable - the intense rivalry has been maintained over decades of grassroots neglect and fluctuating quality.
Those two words would nicely describe the 2015 edition as Cobras extend the lead to 14-0, before a typical Waihou lineout drive halves the gap on the stroke of halftime.
Waihou rugby team in a huddle at halftime during the Dr Dunn Memorial Trophy match. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Two early second half tries push Cobras out to 24-7 and the game feels over. Whatever crackle and energy that was coming from the stands has dissipated. Even when Waihou fullback Liam Annals scores a remarkable breakout try to make it 27-12, it seems a lost cause.
Somehow Waihou drag it back to 27-24 with two minutes to go. Cobras cling on and Smith hoists the chunky Dunn among his supporters in stand. Back in the sheds, over a cold can or two of Lion Brown, Burge reminds his players that bigger goals lie ahead, namely the defence of their Thames Valley championship.
Waihou players disappointed after their 27-24 loss to the C.O.B.R.A.S. Photo / Brett Phibbs
C.O.B.R.A.S. senior rugby team players celebrate their win against Waihou 27-24. Photo / Brett Phibbs
C.O.B.R.A.S. senior rugby team captain Mike Smith celebrates their win against Waihou 27-24. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Nobody in the clubrooms, which are fair humming by now, are looking that far ahead. For the sixth year in succession the Dr Dunn will be in residence, and that's more than enough to get the taps flowing with $5.50 handles of those palate-killers, Waikato Draught and Lion Red.
The players filter in in the No 1s and the formalities begin. It is losing Bs coach Meli Matafeo that steals the show, with an observation that strikes a chord.
"If it wasn't for the Dr Dunn," he says, "some of us would only meet at weddings and funerals."
Stuart Logier, Cobras left wing, enters. He's about the most exotic thing in Te Aroha these days. He has a French father and a Scottish mother and plays his international rugby for Luxembourg, where he's lived for more than 20 years.
The locals like talking to him, just to hear the accent.
A C.O.B.R.A.S. supporter celebrates the win with a cold beer. Photo / Brett Phibbs
C.O.B.R.A.S. supporters ex-All Black Keith Robinson with his parents after the 27-24 win against Waihou. Photo / Brett Phibbs
"One of the coaches in the Luxembourg national set-up knows Steve Hale. I told him I wanted to travel and link it to rugby. They made a few phone calls and here I am. Everything's been good so far... very different from back home."
DRIVING PAST billiard-table pastureland on the way back to a city with 36 $1 million-plus suburbs, where a pint of beer in a downtown pub can cost $13, where neither love nor money can buy a decent footy stadium, it becomes clear that this is not a story about rugby.
It is a story about small-town New Zealand and its people. It's about a place where, for one day each year, the unimportant things really matter - a place where you're allowed to hate your neighbour, as long as it's for all the right reasons.
