New Zealand has more than 500 rugby clubs, which makes selecting a 'First XV of classics' an endeavour sure to stir spirited discussion. Our selection criteria was based on All Blacks produced, championships won, history, uniqueness and rivalry.
We have tried to avoid, where possible, Marist clubs, High School Old Boys' and Varsity clubs because they represent massive institutions (the Catholic church; traditional single-sex state education networks; universities) rather than community.
Christchurch HSOB warrant a place on the list due to their unique reputation of being a first five factory and Otago University also makes an appearance through sheer weight of All Blacks and its indelible part of that particular province's rugby history.
The list is subjective and those clubs who feel aggrieved by their omission should write in for a potential redux in 2021.
Our First XV of classic Kiwi clubs will be rolled out three a week over five weeks.
Week 1:
North Shore Rugby and Football Club
Tukapa Rugby Club
High School Old Boys (Christchurch)
Week 2:
Petone Rugby Club
Manurewa Rugby Club
Glenmark Rugby Football Club
Week 3:
Ponsonby Rugby Club
Waitete Rugby Club
Morrinsville Rugby and Sports Club
Week 4:
Southern Rugby and Football Club
Nelson Rugby Football Club
Otago University RFC
This week:
Invercargill Blues Rugby Club
Mid-Northern Rugby Club
By Scotty Stevenson
Jack Corbett's 1905 All Blacks cap is kept in a vault in the off season, but the folk of the White Star Rugby Club in Westport won't tell you exactly where that vault is.
When it's not locked away for safekeeping the cap takes pride of place on the mezzanine floor of the clubrooms during the winter - a star attraction in the museum exhibition Barry and Deb Roche put together to celebrate a club that is 122 years old and counting.
History is big business in Westport, a rectangle town of timber houses laid down between the tidal reach of the Buller River and the Orowaiti Lagoon. State Highway 67 runs down the main drag, banking right on Brougham Street past the old Victoria Square grandstand creaking in the rain.
Folks follow the road looking for adventures, long walks in national parks, solitude, traces of gold.
In Westport they trade on history. A New Zealand that once was, tough industries that came and went and which have sometimes come again, if only briefly.
Car keys left in ignitions, doors unlocked and neighbours all known, the art deco flourishes after the quake of '29, the bartering power of a pound of whitebait.
They found the gold first and the coal after that. Westport's population topped out at a tick over 5,000 in the 1950s, but the mines ain't what they used to be and the cement works at Cape Foulwind has shut down too. People packed up and left but about 4,000 remain. And so it is that the Buller Senior Shield is down to four clubs: Westport, Old Boys, Ngakawau-Karamea, and White Star.
Barry Townrow has been part of the Buller Rugby Union since 1974. He taught fulltime in Westport for 40 years, at the same school. These days he answers early morning pleas for relievers and happily covers a shift. He is the voice of Buller Rugby on the radio and a White Star man through and through.
"Like every club we've had our ups and downs but we still manage to get a team on the park each weekend and we can still boast a JAB programme, too," he says with the kind of pride reserved for those who understand the power of perseverance.
"It's a shame that so many clubs have disappeared now, but there's any number of reasons why that's the case."
He cites Reefton as an example of a club that lost a bunch of long-time administrators a few years back and failed to find enough people to fill the void. As a result they simply ceased to be.
Remember Victoria Square for White Star v Westport JAB teams this morning. Reefton hosting Old Boys. Good luck to all!!
Posted by Buller Rugby Union on Friday, 28 June 2019
Buller Rugby CEO Andrew Duncan, along with his offsider Tim Manawatu, is trying hard to help get them back up and running.
"It's really interesting to read through the list of senior shield winners and see the clubs that are no longer with us," says Duncan, a born and bred Westporter with a genuine pride in his province.
"You can only imagine how tough some of the teams would have been back in the old days, that's for sure."
He refers to teams like Denniston and Millerton Rangers; Granity and Mokihinui; Hill United and Waimangaroa. All of them now gone, like the gold mines, the flax mills, and the small family farms.
White Star, though, remains.
"From what we know, White Star was formed predominantly by business people in the town," recalls Barry. "So I guess it originally had a bit of a merchant class lean to it. That's not the case these days of course. The club is welcoming of all-comers."
That welcome wasn't always that easy. For many years the club did not even have a club room. The team more often than not played its games on Victoria Square and would get changed and shower up at one of the local hotels, no doubt with favourable terms from a friendly proprietor. (At least there was no shortage of local hotels - for a time Westport may well have boasted the most pubs per capita of any small town in New Zealand.)
It took White Star six seasons to win its first senior shield title, that win coming in 1904.
The club completed the three-peat over the next two years, a run of success that coincided with the emergence of future All Blacks hooker Bill Reedy.
Though he would be picked the All Blacks only after moving to Wellington in 1907, Reedy was just the kind of hard-nosed player who helped define the White Star style in its formative years.
For a club that once got changed in a hotel, there have been long times between drinks in its history.
White Star sits third behind Westport and Ngakawau on the all-time championships list, with 19 titles to its name. Amazingly, the club's longest title drought lasted 31 years, with not a single shield lifted in the 1930's, 40's or 50's.
If fans thought the 1960 victory heralded a new era of dominance they were sadly mistaken. The club went a further 23 years until their next engraving.
Things have certainly improved since. In fact, a further six titles were added between 2002-09 when the club merged with Old Boys.
That arrangement came to an end after the 2009 season when ongoing administrative differences saw the clubs go their separate ways once more. Playing as White Star again, the club won three straight titles between 2010-12 and claimed their last in 2017.
While the club hasn't produced an All Black in the modern era, it has churned out a steady stream of Buller legends. Six of the twelve Buller centurions - Mick Bonisch, Glenn Elley, Orlando Nahr, Logan Mundy, Phil Beveridge and Luke Brownlee - are all White Star men.
In 2018, Brownlee became the first Buller player to appear in 200 matches for the union, having made his debut in 1999 as an 18-year old flanker.
"I played my first game for the White Star seniors when I was 17 years old," says Brownlee while rushing around his farm during the busy calving season.
"I think we won the title that year [they did] but it was all a bit of a blur. I had come straight from under-16s into the prems so I was doing my best to keep my head down and do my job!"
While Brownlee retired from first class rugby after the 2018 Heartland season he can still be found floating around the club he won 12 titles with.
History is not only important in Westport, it repeats. This year Brownlee laced up for the seniors in a match with his son Taine. Taine is just 17 years old. He plays in his dad's old number: 7.
"I can tell you he plays a better game of rugby than I did as a 17-year-old kid," says Brownlee with just a hint of paternal pride.
It may seem odd to think of a teenager running around in senior rugby, but such is the nature of the sport that all teams are getting younger.
Townrow says it's ironic that the average age of the senior side is dropping when the biggest challenge facing the sport is keeping kids in Westport.
"The average age of our senior team this year was 19 and a half," he says.
"What's interesting about the team though is that its core is a group of players who have all come up through the grades together right from under-15s. That's all been orchestrated by parent coaches who have stuck with these boys all the way, and that is quite the achievement in itself."
Loyalty, as it is for most clubs around the country, is the bedrock upon which association is built.
While Luke Brownlee can't begin to imagine how many games he's played - "not as many as Dozer [Beveridge] that's for sure" - he would never have dreamed of jumping ship.
"Oh hell no. Once you played for Star you stayed with Star. You certainly wouldn't be heading over to join Westport, that's for sure."
The rivalry with Westport is certainly the one that matters from a White Star point of view.
Brownlee says the players would always share a beer after the games but "if you were lying on the ball during it you would be stood on for sure".
While the club has produced some celebrated provincial players, it has also been a great breeding ground for administrators and coaches.
Bill Craddock was a member of the New Zealand Rugby Union and manager of the All Blacks to Australia in 1957, while the club's secretary Lou Carmine was a selector for the Invincibles of 1924 and manager of the All Blacks side that beat the 'Boks in 1956.
Buller's Lochore Cup winning coaches Craig Neill and Craig Scanlon also cut their teeth barking at the boys of White Star.
These days their affiliation to the club can be found on the race track - the two Craigs have a horse called Orlando Star, named after that club tough guy Orlando Nahr.
And in another nod to history - and did we not agree that in Westport history is important - Luke Brownlee recalls the standard rule for selection of the post-match watering hole.
"Well, we used to finish up at the Black and White but then we shifted down to the Criterion."
And why the change?
"Because Glen Elley sold one and bought the other."
Which goes to show, a White Star man will never jump ship, but he just might hop pubs.
