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Sports correspondent & historian with |
Anzac Day 2025 opens a new chapter at Bay Oval as the international cricket venue becomes a Super Rugby Pacific ground for a day.
The Chiefs will be hosting the Western Force for the match. The Chiefs last played in Tauranga in 2013, when 15,000 people watched their 23-16 win against the Blues at Baypark Stadium.
Simon Graafhuis, Chiefs Rugby Club chief executive, told the Bay of Plenty Times in January that the Bay Oval was a premier sporting venue that provided all the facilities required to operate a Super Rugby match.
“Most importantly, including lights to enable a night game to be played.”
Graafhuis said Tauranga was the second biggest city in the Chiefs’ region, and a significant portion of the fan base lived there.
Next day, the race for Bay of Plenty club rugby supremacy will resume with the Baywide Premier title race picking up after an Easter Saturday break in play.
The Baywide Premier competition that began in 1990 was a different beast to today’s club rugby scene.
Professional rugby was five years in the future and All Blacks still played club rugby each week.
Bay of Plenty club rugby supremacy lay firmly in Rotorua and the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Waikite, from the Rotorua suburb of Koutu, were the inaugural Baywide champions and would add another title in 1996.
Eastern Bay of Plenty powerhouse Whakatāne Marist, Rotorua’s Eastern Pirates and Ngongotahā, all posted double success in the first decade of Baywide rugby.
Western Bay of Plenty success was scant, with just Mount Maunganui (1993) and Tauranga Sports (1999) triumphing in the first 10 seasons of Baywide competition.
The second decade of the Bay of Plenty-wide game saw the growth of the competition to 24 teams, with promotion/relegation providing a pathway to the top echelon.
Tauranga Sports won five Baywide Premier titles during the first decade of the new millennium, with Whakarewarewa earning two titles.
You have to trawl back to the 2006 Whakarewarewa victory to find the last premier success from outside the Western Bay of Plenty region.
Covid and the cost of bus travel reduced Baywide competition to 12 then 10 teams, with a proposed eight-side competition in 2025.
A late withdrawal on the cusp of this year’s Baywide title race has seen defending champions Te Puke Sports joined by Greerton Marist, Te Puna, Mount Maunganui, Tauranga Sports, Rangataua and Whakarewarewa in chasing the Baywide spoils of success.
Super Rugby has changed the rugby union landscape in our nation.
In the 1990s, before the days of the professional game, aspiring Bay of Plenty representatives had to impress in club rugby to earn an invitation to wear the blue and gold strip.
Today, prospective Super Rugby candidates must shine in elite school First XV rugby to endeavour to catch the eye of the Super Rugby Academy scouts.
Club rugby is much less a pathway to the Bay of Plenty Steamers than at the start of the Baywide game 35 years ago.
One constant since the Baywide game kicked off is the level of the club fan base. Try getting a park outside Te Puna headquarters at Maramatanga Park, Greerton Park or Blake Park, on game day.
Outside the ranks of Baywide competition, Arataki, Rangiuru, Judea/Matakana Island Combined, Eastern Districts, Katikati and Papamoa, also enjoy good support in the Western Bay of Plenty Sub-Union competition.
The rugby landscape has changed much in the last 35 seasons, but senior club rugby still provides an environment for those who want to get out on the paddock to play the great game.