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

Baywide Rugby has reached the business end of the season, with three divisions of semi-finals to be fought out this Saturday.

In the Premier ranks, Te Puke Sports finished at top of the standings at the end of the regular season and will host Whakarewarewa from the Sulphur City, at Murray Salt Stadium.

It may feel like Groundhog Day for Tauranga Sports and Mount Maunganui who met last weekend – with Tauranga Sports taking out a 24-3 win to earn a home venue this weekend.

Whakarewarewa were gifted the last post section place, as they sat in fifth position entering the last game of the qualifying competition.

Rangataua were the Rotorua side's savior, when they squeezed past Rotoiti 28-27, which saw Whaka leapfrog Rotoiti to grab the last post-section spot.

The Division One title race has turned into a Western Bay verses Eastern Bay shootout, with top qualifier Rangiuru and Arataki carrying the flag for Western Bay of Plenty. Te Teko and Poroporo are the Eastern Bay hopes to win the Baywide second echelon title.

One certainty in 2015 Bay of Plenty Club Rugby is that the Development Competition trophy will reside in the Western Bay for the next twelve months.

Te Puke Sports will be at home to Greerton Marist with Tauranga Sports and Mount Maunganui meeting for the second successive weekend at the Tauranga Domain.

A little crystal-ball gazing from Sideline Sid has suggested that Te Puke Sports will dispatch the Rotorua visitors, with Tauranga Sports winning the rematch against Mount Maunganui, in the Premier division.

The formbook says that Te Puke Sports and Tauranga Sports will win through to the title decider in the Development competition, while Division One is just too close to call.

Last weekend this grey headed local rugby reviewer and commentator entered his seventh decade, and that got me thinking about some of the memorable games that I have been lucky enough to attend over the years.

Living just down the road from Athletic Park in Wellington during my school days, the Capital City matches against the 1956 Springboks remain vivid in my memory.

While the second test and the Wellington game were lost to the South African visitors, New Zealand Universities provided an upset to beat the Boks 22-15.

Being at Te Aroha Domain on the September 18, 1962, resulted in the upset of the century, when a little fancied Thames Valley team defeated the touring Australians 16-14.

The 1971 British Lions are arguably one of the finest touring sides to come to New Zealand, with the now grey-headed rugby fanatic seeing them play New Zealand Maori in Auckland, Bay of Plenty and West Coast/Buller in Greymouth.

The 1980s brought classic sideline viewing of the Springboks 12-12 draw with New Zealand Maori in Napier, and who can forget the devastating Bay of Plenty 40-16 victory over Australia at Rotorua during 1982?

And two 1987 World Cup games were a forgettable Canada v Tonga match in Napier and the play-off for third place, where a packed-out Rotorua Stadium saw Wales beat Australia in an absolute thriller, with the Welsh winning 22-21.

The 1993 Lions match in Hamilton was another monumental upset, when Waikato dished it up to the tourists to post a 38-10 victory.

The end of the amateur era in 1995 saw three-month long international rugby tours that visited the majority of the country's provinces, become a thing of the past.

While the British and Irish Lions are touring New Zealand in 2017, the visit will be a whistle-stop tour of the major cities in the country, with rugby fans in smaller cities and provincial towns having to travel to catch the action.

See ya at the game.