Sideline Sid Sports correspondant & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

With our 10-week break on the Sunshine Coast coming to an end, we've arrive back in the Western Bay of Plenty.

While catching up with family and friends and enjoying a very mild Queensland winter, there's no place like home – and we're looking forward to Kiwi coverage of the Commonwealth Games.

While being force-fed a diet of the so-called ‘Aussie gold rush' over the ditch, it's great to see the English giving the Ockers a run for their money for top of the gold medal table.

We've had sporadic news of New Zealand's performances, relying on the internet when we found Wi-fi connections.

It's great to see Mount Maunganui seize the Baywide premier crown for the first time in nine seasons, with SunLive reporting the Bay of Plenty inter-city derby went down to the wire.

While the club rugby season is nearly finished, there's plenty of representative rugby to come. Sideline Sid follows just two teams with a passion – the All Blacks and the Bay of Plenty Steamers.

In recent years Sid has become involved in looking after the media requirements of the Stan Meads Cup.

The mid North Island sub-union competition is played in a mid-August/early-September window – and it's another opportunity for players to showcase their talents in front of a wider audience.

The Stan Meads Cup is named in honour of one of the most dedicated All Black forwards of the 1960s.

A piece of genuine rugby history continues in the round robin series of the SMC, with the Peace Cup on the line in each preliminary game.

In 1921 Mr Bill English donated the Peace Cup for competition between the sub-unions of the Auckland Province.

In early decades, the Peace Cup ranked only in stature to the Ranfurly Shield in the region, and drew large crowds and parochial support throughout the Waikato, King Country, Thames Valley and Bay of Plenty.

During the 1950s to late-1960s the Peace Cup was at its zenith, and Peace Cup representative team positions were hotly-contested.

Special trains were put on to ferry parochial team supporters to Peace Cup games, with host towns often putting on street parades that made their way to the ground on game day.

With the Peace Cup failing to capture the interest of just a couple of sub-unions in recent years, the long-time trophy was given new life as a challenge trophy within the Stan Meads Cup competition.