May 17th

Well we had a week from hell again as far as the Senior teams were concerned apart from the Social sides with both Pressies sides having good wins and our Reserves side finally having a team to play against for a change and having a close win.

Our Senior 1st team had a bad day at the Office with both players and coaching staff unable to put a finger on the changing fortunes in the last part of the 1st round, we hope for better results for Old Timers Day against Upper Hutt.

Our Women met a determined OBU side that played hard and were hungrier than our Girls especially in the forwards. Stokes Valley just couldn’t get the basics right and some ugly ball from the base of our scrum meant that our backline couldn’t perform to their normal high standard so we have some work to do before the game against Norths next weekend.

Reserves had a an excellent game by all accounts with tries to Allan Pita and Kyle Thompson and their POBD was Che Todd.

Netball had a couple of wins with Stokes Valley 1 and 6 having good results and we had four losses with our other teams.

The Under 19s had some unfortunate news on Friday night with the sudden death of BJ Morgan a former player with our U19s and Taita College as well as representing Wellington in Touch, he will be sadly missed.

The U19s went to Johnsonville and had the measure of their opposition until late in the second half with some confusing decisions coming from the Ref in the last 10 minutes giving Johnsonville three easy tries to take the game 26 – 35.

May 10th

Well we have just had the weekend from hell with only one team having a win in the whole club so congratulations at least to the Women’s Rugby Team, best we leave it their and move on to more brighter things.

Old Timers day is approaching very quickly and before we know it will be 24th May. Preparations for games are well under way but we are preying for fine weather so we can get as many teams at home as possible including the Junior Club running possibly U6/7 teams prior to Senior !st team on Number 1 Field. Entertainment for the evening will be Billy Cadallac who has been with use before(TBC) and this should kick off at around 7pm

Timetable to Date (all times and games to be confirmed).

11.00 – 12.00 Old Timers Muster/Welcome
12.30 – 1.00 Old Timers Luncheon
11.30 – 1230 Junior Rugby Delaney 1 & 2
1.00 - 2.30 Senior 3rd/Pressies Gold Delaney 1 & 2
2.30 – 3.00 Junior Rugby Delaney 1 & 2
3.00 – 4.30 Senior 1st/Pressies Red Delaney 1 & 2
6.30 – 7.00 Senior Club Weekly Prizegiving
7.00 – till late Entertainment

The WRFU have announced that Stokes Valley have been given the hosting rights for Pressies Day 2008 on the Sunday of Queens Birthday Weekend. This has taken a few years of ground work behind the scenes but we now have our opportunity and we plan to make sure that we host a great event that people will talk about and remember for a number of years. We must also thank the Soccer Club for their assistance in providing the use of their facilities to accommodate all of the teams for the day and this may also assist the Soccer Club to look at setting up a similar event in the future.

If you are able to offer any assistance on the Sunday of Queens Birthday Weekend or Old Timers Day we would gladly appreciate any help to make both days successful.

It has to be said that not enough attention has been paid to the assistance that players reserving for other teams are given after games and also the lack of support shown by the teams playing early games to those teams that play the later games on Saturdays so please be mindful that it is a two way street boys.

May 3rd

With a number of absentees this week against Ories either through injury or unavailability made our task a lot harder but a loss is a loss 8 – 20, many thanks to the boys who from either Senior 3rds, Reserves Grade and U19 that reserved on the sidelines for other teams. Hina made a valid point to me on Sunday it is always so hard for these guys to walk away from their own games to maybe get 10 – 15 minutes or in some cases no game while their own team is left to struggle for player numbers and often players end up being out of position that make things even worse, so coaches need to verbally thank these guys and invite them for a drink and make them feel that they have contributed and been recognised.

Our Senior 3rds had a hard task playing at Hataitai Park as this was Wellingtons “Old Timers Day” but the boys stuck to their guns with a final score of 14 – 24 loss.

Reserves played on the Friday against OBU and had a good win 24 – 12, as mentioned above this helped out with player numbers for Saturday.

Our two Pressies sides had a good hit out(excuse the pun), it did get a bit heated at times but the fulltime whistle was welcomed and it was good to see both teams shouting for each other afterwards

As far as the rugby points tally for the year is concerned we may have to concede that the Women’s team will have the top points and try scorers for the club this year. We know it is early days yet but the women have been getting some big scores on the board. Another top effort with 100 points registered against a new team into this years competition, Wainui.

Club Draws
Team of the Week Pressies Red
Club Member Womens Rugby – Jennifer Finau
Non Playing Life Pharmacy – Phil Hines

To qualify for these draws you must be present at the Club @ 6.30pm and have sufficient paid up members of your respective teams to qualify for the associated Bar Tabs or Prizes, unfortunately the criteria wasn’t met on all three of the above draws so ensure that you get the SUBS paid and that you are here for these draws.

Test Tickets for Irish Test
Tickets are available for this Test at the Wellington Stadium on the 7th June and range in value from $70 - $110 per ticket.
Please contact Steve Winmill on 563 9108 if you would like to purchase any tickets.

Dave Costello
Club Captain

April 27th

Congratulations to the Senior 1sts for another nail-bitter of a game against our neighbours Rimatuka, winning by the hairs on our “chinny chin chin” is becoming a habit which we need to improve on to get up that points table. I am sure that we all feel that our team is worth backing and it was pleasing to see the numbers of supporters increasing with our successes. Also good news from both our Senior 3rds and Pressies Gold having wins against Rimatuka over the weekend giving us the treble, we also have the Snow Buchanan Trophy returned to the Cabinet to boot as well. The Women’s team had competition leaders Johnsonville on our home patch and it was great to see a committed side putting bodies on the line, after losing their inspirational captain Tina Watson in the first half the girls stuck to the task against a side that has been winning games by 50-60 points to just go down 5 – 15 was a great result. Our Under 19 side was up against a big Norths line-up at Fraser and again it is hard to make up a team when we don’t have sufficient players turning up on a regular basis but thanks to the college boys who did make up the numbers and help out. The result was a 44 – Nil but the boys had the odds stacked against them from the start. As for the Reserves a mix-up by a ref sent our boys away to another venue and back again to find out that they had been defaulted too but we will follow this up with the union.

Senior !st POD Dion Adams

Senior 3rd POD Lucas McCann

Women’s POD Lisa Hema

Under 19 POD Phil

Pressies Gold POD

Again we had a big effort from the Women in the Kitchen with putting on a spread for the Senior 1st and Rimatuka and this was much appreciated by both teams.

Well done to Jenni Ralph for a great effort on the Quiz Night, everyone enjoyed themselves and some great rivalry was had between all the teams involved and it is an event that we need to have on an annual basis.

Results

Winners – Super Bad with $100 Bar Tab

2nd Place – Rangi Tu Tus with $60 Bar Tab

3rd Place – The Co Co Front Row with $40 Bar Tab

Club Draws

Members Draw Geneva Webber (not at the Club at time of the Draw)

Team Draw Senior 3rds (team not financial)

Non Playing Member Phil Hines Life Pharmacy

Our Reserves side are running a Hangi on the last weekend of the month to raise money for their Subs if last weeks effort is anything to go by I recommend that you get in quick as they are well worth the $8, so see one of the Reserves and get your ticket ASAP.

Don’t forget also that our Netball Teams are fund raising when we have home games and are running sausage sizzles, hot soup and tea and coffees so on these cold days they are well worth the effort to seek them out and try their wares.

Dave Costello
Club Captain

April 20th

Well we had a big night in the Vegas last week with players achieving a number of milestones and being recognised by the club and some of our Life Members that were present for the occasion. In today’s professional era clubs don’t have players sticking around and making 50/100 games as they are lured away by incentives to play for other clubs or unions so it was great to see a small club like Stokes Valley recognising players who are loyal to their roots.My thanks must go out to Hina and Steph Barnden for arranging the photos/banners, Mark Diamond for being the MC and Jenni and the girls in the kitchen for putting on a fine spread for the Senior team.

It was also a welcome return to having a number of teams playing at home with both the Senior1st/3rds, our U19 and Pressies Gold and our Womens team that kicked off at 11.30.am. this invariably puts a strain on people resources to ensure that changing facilities are available for everyone and that hot water is available for all teams after they finish their games so please be mindfull of other people having to take-over after you have finished your games. If you are the 3.00pm game or the last game on your field for the day please ensure that you bring in the bags from your posts and the flags as this makes our job a little easier at the end of the day.

A nuggetty win from the Seniors over OBU showed a lot of character having to defend for a large part of that game with a final score 14 – 12 with Luke McLennan awarded POD.

Our Senior 3rds made a great comeback after being three tries down in the early stages of their game against Ories and losing a player to the sin bin in the first half and went down narrowly 16 – 17 with their POD Tofi Setefano.

The Women played the early game at Petone and came under fire from a bigger and more experienced side but by all accounts from Tim Sanson who watched the game, put in a mighty effort and showed lots of promise for the remainder of the season, final score 10 – 27 and their POD was Briar Kopa.

Under 19 had their first game of the season and even though we had a few of the Taita College boys helping make the numbers up came through to draw the match 24 all. We do need to get more numbers/players for this team to continue so those of you who may know of sons/cousins/friends etc please contact myself or Aaron with names and contact phone numbers.

Presseies Gold have reformed thanks to Mike Gray getting the boys rejuvenated with lots of phone calls and promises of support and they started of the season on the right foot with a good win over Wainui 40 – 7 with POD being Jeremy Drummond with 2 tries.

Pressies Red were the furtherist away at Martin Luckie against MSP Red Devils. After a disasterous start MSP were up 15 nil at halftime but a stern talking to and playing with the sun behind us in the second half a monumentus recovery took place and the Stokes Valley Reds scored 36 unanswered points to win 36 – 15 with new recruit Ben scoring three tries and was POD for his efforts.

This week we are scheduled to have another 5 teams playing at home but due to weather their maybe TRANSFERS TO OTHER GROUNDS. Please listen to NEWSTALK ZB and THE BREEZE for all cancellations and transfers.

Next week we have “Quiz Night “ at the club from 7.30pm till approx 9.00pm with each player paying $4 for the right to make up teams of either mates, players , girlfriends, boyfriends or whatever and we will have spot prizes throughout the competition.

Reminder to all players that we require your SUBS NOW!!!!!!, those that have paid we thank you for your promptness.

Dave Costello
Club Captain