Sports correspondent & historian with Sideline Sid

Last weekend’s start to the National Provincial Championship brought thousands of provincial rugby fans to matches spread from Eden Park in the City of Sails to Invercargill in the deep south.

A near full house at the Tauranga Domain saw the Bay of Plenty Steamers demolish the Tasman Mako by 30 points in a 37-7 victory.

Steamers fans arrived in their thousands to give vocal support to their team, with plenty wearing the blue-and-gold colours of their side.

Long-time fanatical Steamers fan Hori BoP was there in full voice, leading the vocal support with a band of followers.

Each of the Steamers’ five tries brought the home fans out of their seats with cheers of joy, likely to have been heard well outside the confines of the Western Bay rugby headquarters.

The Ranfurly Shield clash between holders Taranaki and Northland drew fans like moths to light, when the ’Naki retained the Log of Wood in New Plymouth.

Elsewhere in the country, there were big crowds on hand when Manawatū beat North Harbour in Palmerston North and Otago edged the Southland Stags in Invercargill.

Another vocal home crowd got behind Hawke’s Bay as the Magpies ran over Counties Manukau at McLean Park in Napier.

Meanwhile, in the big smoke, Waikato won a thriller against Auckland before a modest crowd at Eden Park and Canterbury trumped Wellington on the outskirts of the capital in Porirua.

In the last few years, rumors have spread gossip of the demise of the National Provincial Championship (NPC).

Those who truly care about the great game need only to turn their gaze to the thoroughbred racing industry to see the damage done by trying to fix something that ain’t broke.

Inside the last decade, racetracks have been slashed from 48 courses to nearly half that number today.

The demise has been twofold.

Local horse racing has been ripped away from rural hubs and communities, such as Dargaville, Te Teko, Wairoa, Stratford, Waipukarau, Blenheim, Motukaraka outside Christchurch and Ōmakau, deep in Central Otago.

In spite of three new synthetic tracks for winter racing, the severely reduced number of grass tracks has put undue pressure on racecourses in some regions.

In the Central Districts region, the key tracks of Hastings and Awapuni (Palmertson North) were allocated an increased load of meetings.

This resulted in problems, including with the grass surfaces and drainage, that saw them both out of action for a considerable period in the 2024/25 season.

Now, there has been a scramble to bring Waipukarau and Woodville back from the wilderness and utilise the Waverly and Hāwera tracks on a more regular basis, in order to accommodate the scheduled race dates.

The lesson to be learnt is: don’t ignore and forget the country’s rugby heart, where the NPC creates strong patriotic followings – outside the two North Island concrete jungles.