Chairpersons Update

It was a very successful awards evening on Saturday night and we have included a summary of the award recipients below. The StreamLine Junior Rugby season is nearing an end and Prizegiving will be held on Sunday 11 October at 10 am. Junior players are asked to bring a plate to share with your team. We also ask that all Tukapa playing jerseys are returned on the day.

Along with prizegiving we will have other events on the day such as Parents vs Kids Rugby games, Bouncing Castle for the young ones, a Lolly Scramble, and meet the Egmont Seeds Premier players. 

This is always a great morning out so make sure you bring the whole family.

Wellington Bledisloe Cup Test Match Deal

helloworld Strandon has put together a 2-day In-seat Package for the first Bledisloe Cup in Wellington. This test is sure to be a sort after so if you are interested please call Bev Ellice on 06 757-5666 to secure your booking.

Tukapa Rugby Awards Summary 2020

Chairpersons Update

Let's Celebrate a Great Year of Club Rugby

It's time for every blue and white supporter to celebrate the coming out of lockdown and the great year of rugby achieved by all of our club teams.

This Saturday evening 26 September we will hold the Tukapa Rugby Prize Giving 2020 in the Chook House and award a number of accolades to deserving club members and acknowledge our very dedicated and loyal sponsors.

You are all invited and welcome to celebrate these achievements with us and the program will run something like this:

1.30 pm Maori’s vs Pacifica Rugby Kick off
4.00 pm Maori’s and Pacifica Rugby After Match
4.00 pm Ash’s Bar open for pre - Happy Hour drinks
6.00 pm Ash’s Bar closes
6.00 pm Happy hour starts at Downstairs Bar
7.00 pm Happy hour finishes.
7.15 pm Speeches and Awards Presentation
8.00 pm Finger food served
8.15 pm DJ starts and Party on Down and Jam to 1990 and early 2000s
11.45 pm Evening Closes Down

There will be a $5 cover charge and we ask if you could RSVP to info@tukapa.co.nz so we can get an indication of numbers for catering.

Blue and White For Life – Scotty your Chairperson

Chairpersons Update

As we start to move out of Club rugby and start to get ready for Taranaki to take the field, we still have a lot of our Tukapa players training with the Bulls, Under 20’s, Maori and Pacifica teams and getting ready to play. I will put a schedule together with who we have in each team and all the games so you know where to go to get your rugby fix.

This week we have bookings in the club so the mighty Ash’s Bar, home of the Brown Bomber will be open.

Thursday 5pm to 7.30pm

Friday    3.45pm to 6.30pm

Saturday 4pm to 6.30pm

Please be sure to sign in for Covid and also use the back staircase on right of the front door.

Prize Giving Postponed

Due to COVID19 we have had to postpone the club prize giving until 26 September and we will send out more information once we have the format confirmed.

Our Scotty Signs for Canterbury 2020 Mitre 10 Cup

A massive congratulations to Scott Mellow who has signed with Canterbury for the 2020 Mitre 10 cup season. We wish him and his whānau all the best! 

Blue and White For Life - Scotty your Chairperson

Chairpersons Update

Well, what a weekend and congratulations to our Premier and Division 2 teams for making the finals of the CMK Club Rugby Championships.

Our Premier Team took out the CMK Premier Championship 2020 33-29 finishing off the season winning every game and now the club has won 17 Premier Championships. Because of COVID19, there was no option to have spectators at the ground but Tukapa as a club supported the teams via live streaming and the Chook House was near to limit of the COVID gathering restrictions.

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Club supporters gave the Premier team a rousing reception when they returned from TET Stadium with the Championship Trophy. You can watch the response below:

All games were close with our Division 2 just missing a win with Normanby coming out the winners 13 - 11.

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Limited Edition Championship Winners 2020 T-Shirt

Limited Edition Championship Winners 2020 T-Shirt is now available so get in quick.

Orders to be in and paid for by Friday the 28th of August.
(Delivery towards the 11th of September).

$25.00 100% polyester quick dry tee.

Kids sizes: 4 years - 16 years
Adults sizes: Small - 3XL & 5XL

Email or message Grant to place an order. (invoice will be issued for the payment to confirm order).
grant@kingsway.co.nz

Prize Giving Postponed

Due to COVID19 we have had to postpone the club prize giving until 26 September and we will send out more information once we have the format confirmed.

Tomorrow night (Friday) the Chook House Bar will be open for a Finals debrief so I look forward to seeing you there. Once again we will be complying with COVID rules and protocols.

Junior Rugby Postponed

Unfortunately, Junior Rugby is also postponed until we hear the result of the next COVID status Level. We will keep you posted.

 Our Man Jeeves: RIP

Brian Charles (“Jeeves”) Holdt was a legendary Tukapa club stalwart who passed away last week at the age of 77.

Born into a staunchly Blue & White family, Brian was the son of Walter Holdt who joined Tukapa in 1932 and who was followed a year later by his brother Syd, with youngest brother Roy joining the club in 1945.

Together these three Holdt brothers established a family legacy of devoted commitment to the Tukapa club.

Brian’s membership at Tukapa began in 1954 and he was in turn followed by his brothers Dennis and Alan. Brian played through the grades and at 19 began his 10-year spell in Senior club rugby from which he was chosen as a lock to play for Taranaki Colts and Taranaki B.

For Brian, the undoubted highlight of his long rugby career in the Senior A’s was being part of one of Tukapa’s most celebrated golden eras when his team, coached by Pat Doherty, won 3 championship titles in 4 years, these seasons being 1966, 1968 and 1969.

In 1966, whilst still playing for the Senior A’s, Brian joined the Management Committee of the club and he later stepped up to the role of Treasurer, a position he held for nine years. From 1982 till 1992 Brian was a Vice President at Tukapa while, at the same time his wife Colleen was active on the Ladies Committee.

More recently, Brian has been a loyal and passionate supporter of the Senior A’s in particular. He would never miss a home game and was always on every Supporters Bus to away games along with other members of the Holdt family and his many Tukapa mates.

All of us regulars up at Tukapa will greatly miss “genial Jeeves” and his friendly banter. Our sincerest condolences go out to Colleen and the wider Holdt family.

The following article appeared in the NZ Herald 12 Aug 2020

The First XV of classic New Zealand rugby clubs: Tukapa

12 Aug, 2020 3:00pm

4 minutes to read

By: Dylan Cleaver dylan.cleaver@nzherald.co.nz

Tukapa Rugby Club

Established: 1892

Home ground: Sanders Park

Province: Taranaki

Naturally, Star was Tukapa's biggest rivals throughout much of their history, but the former lost their identity when they merged to form Spotswood United.

"Tukapa has always retained its own identity," says stalwart Lindsay Thomson, a lock who played 160 games for Tukapa and 104 more for Taranaki between 1983 and 1993.

In recent decades Thomson says the rivalry with Old Boys has emerged as the preeminent New Plymouth derby as they are often each other's biggest challengers for the title.

The enmity is also based on the affiliation Old Boys has with New Plymouth Boys' High School, traditionally the province's leading rugby talent nursery, while Tukapa has "in the past 10 to 15 years" developed a connection with nearby upstart Catholic boys school Francis Douglas Memorial College, home of the Barrett brothers.

To solidify that Catholic association, Tukapa joined the Marist sports association, though there is no overt religious element at the club.

So it's a successful club with a rich history, but there are many clubs like that dotted across New Zealand and, indeed, Taranaki.

What elevates Tukapa to "classic" status is a chicken or, more specifically, a song about a chicken; surely the most curious and well-known (in some quarters despised) club rugby song in the country.

Go on, find yourself a quiet space, shut the door behind you, and give this a whirl:

Oh, that chicken! That cast iron chicken, I never knew a little bird could sing, sing, sing Till it started humming, "Tukapas are coming", And it danced the Highland Fling: Gor' Blimey. When we're passing, down by the meatworks It brings back memories Of that cast-iron fowl, that the Tukapas found On the plains of the Waimate Tukapa, He, He, Ha Tukapa, He, He, Ha Moturoa, Mikotai, Paritutu Moturoa, Mikotai, Paritutu He! Ha! Tukapa!

Well, where do you start with that jumble or words? The most accepted story of the song's origins involves a trip to Manaia to play Waimate (now one of three clubs that merged to form Southern) in 1902.

Tukapa arrived in the south Taranaki town and went for a pub meal before the match. The host prepared a chicken meal that went down very poorly. The birds were said to be so tough they were hard to chew and impossible to digest.

The powerful Tukapa XV subsequently lost a match they were expected to win and the post mortems on the bus trip home identified a scapegoat, which turned out to be a scapechicken.

"We no doubt had to blame something," Thomson says. "It's a big part of our club and we use it to celebrate. The song is what makes us unique and I suspect it's also the reason other clubs like to beat us."

That's the bit we haven't mentioned yet. If you aren't Tukapa, you tend to hate them.

"Us and Old Boys are the teams the others love to beat because, I think, we're seen as the flash city slickers with our big clubrooms." Love Tukapa or hate them, you can't deny they're a classic Kiwi footy club.

Lets Close the Week with the Mighty Blue and White call

Blue and White For Life - Scotty your Chairperson

Chairpersons Update

Due to the situation with COVID 19 there will be no spectators attending the Club Finals at TET Stadium in Inglewood this weekend. The TRFU is committed to providing viewing access to as many people as possible and will be live streaming all games. We will be live-streaming the 3rds at 12pm and the Premiers at 2pm in the Chook House.

To comply with COVID rules we will have 100 people enter through the top door and 100 people through the bottom door. All visitors need to be part of a contact tracing process through the COVID app or fill in the paper form at the door of each bar and you will not be able to cross between bars. All visitors need to follow hygiene protocols and must be seated in clubrooms.

Anyone not compiling or not showing respect for the people tasked with managing and enforcing these rules will be asked to leave - we will not mess around when it comes to this.

The kitchen will open for ham burger and chips for $10 at 2pm and as usual there will be an array of chilled beverages available from both bars.

Entry will be 1st in 1st severed and you will be issued a coloured wrist band on entry.  

Please respect our rules and we hope we can all have a good day. 

For those who are unable to attend the Chook House, the following YouTube channels will be streaming the live games.

Colts Final TRFU ch 4 Coastal v Stratford-Eltham 11 :30 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7khBNZ7N0h17XTBDzqyhZA

Div 2 Final TRFU ch 3 Tukapa Rugby & Sports Club v Normanby 12:00 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXcLLoVLoGNpvEZeFe-hOsA

Div 1 Final TRFU ch 2 New Plymouth HSOB Rugby Football & Sports Club v Southern 12:30 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6SdyD-rxJyyHdqwCbRtafA

Prem Final TRFU ch 1 Tukapa Rugby & Sports Club v Inglewood United Rugby Club 14:00 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS_JmsQVpdTxduaMwjGycIQ

Team announcement and program for the both our Tukapa Teams can be found here: https://www.tukapa.co.nz/programme/

Finals Experience

They say experience counts for a lot, so let’s look at the track record of our Senior A’s and Senior Thirds in finals since 2000.

For our Senior A’s, as shown in last week’s article, the biggest hurdle in the knock-out phase of the competition since 2000 has always been the semis (Our Prems played in 17 semis for 10 losses and 7 wins over this period).

However, their record in finals since 2000 has been much better. Our Prems have played in 8 finals during the last 20 years for six wins (2001, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2016, and 2017) and 2 losses (2000 and 2002).

Significantly, of the 6 wins by the A’s over the period since 2000, four of those were against NPOB (2005, 2010, 2011, 2016) with the other two finals victories being against Eltham/Kaponga (2001) and Coastal (2017).

Notable also is the fact that the Tukapa team to play the grand final on Saturday has considerable finals experience within its ranks. Of the 2016 championship-winning team, eight of them (Leighton Price, Mitchell Crosswell, Henry Miles, Daniel Bernet, Brendon Dent, Corbin Porteous, and Eli Kneepkens) will be fronting again in this year’s final. From the 2017 title-winning side the following players will again be contesting the final: Brendon Dent, Leighton Price, Mitchell Crosswell, Jason Potroz, Henry Miles, Daniel Bernet, and Scott Mellow. That amount of experience in winning finals footie bodes well for our chances in the big match on Saturday.

Turning to our Senior Thirds, they have been our most successful title-winning team in the period since 2000. In total, our Thirds played in 12 finals during this period for eight wins and four losses. The team’s purple patch came in the years 2001 through till 2012 when they played in ten finals, winning 8 and losing only 2 including a remarkable four titles in a row (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004) under coach Wayne Penn.

Finally, in terms of individual success in finals over recent decades, Jack Cameron’s record stands out. Jack played in five Senior A finals in his long career at Tukapa with a 100% success rate. In other words, in all the finals he played in (2005, 2010, 2011, 2016, and 2017) he was never in a losing final.