| Club information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Petone Rugby Club | ||
| Website | www.petonerugby.com | ||
| Colours | Blue and White | ||
| Founded | 1885 | ||
| Current details | |||
| Ground(s) | North Park, Udy Street, Petone | ||
| Competition | Wellington Premiership | ||
The Petone Rugby Football Club was founded in 1885 and has been the Wellington Premier Champion 39 times between 1895 and 2005. In addition to this, the club has won the Club Championship on 42 occasions between 1922 and 2005. Petone is a constituent club of the Wellington Rugby Football Union.
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The Petone Club rooms are at the lower end of the Hutt Valley on a site in Udy Street. The Clubrooms stand immediately adjacent to North Park, a field maintained to the highest standards even though it is only used for training.
Other Club facilities include:
Club membership in 2008 totalled more than 750, made up of Life Members, Vice Presidents, Honorary Members, Open and Age Grade players and 412 young players in the Junior Section ranging from 4 and 5 year olds in the nursery grade to 12 year olds. The Club fields nine teams in the Wellington Union's 2008 competition grades from Premier to Under 19 including the re-emergence of a Women's side.
The Club funds two Coaching Coordinators, Ex All Black Allan Hewson and David Pollock. Both men have years of experience behind them. Both also have key roles in the activities of the Ken Gray Academy.
The Club has produced 30 All Blacks and 16 NZ Maori representatives. One of the club's newest Maori Representatives is Hoani Tui, Ross Filipo who is currently playing Super 14 for the Crusaders, is the club's most recent All Black. Current All Black Neemia Tialata plays for the Hurricanes. NZ Under 20 player Dan Kirkpatrick is also a member of the Wellington Lions squad. All players turn out for Petone when representative duties permit.
Tana Umaga became an All Black in 1997 and played continuously for his country before his retirement in 2006, becoming Captain in 2004. Andy Leslie - the current NZ Rugby Union Vice President - was the Club's first appointed All Black touring captain to Britain (1974) and South Africa (1976).
Petone had a four-year reign as Premier Champions between 1904 and 1907 and the Club set a memorable record in the 1907 season when it won all championship grades in the Wellington competition. After the 1907 season the club was weakened by inadvertently helping the formation of rugby league in New Zealand. The club provided six players for the professional 1907-1908 rugby tour of Great Britain including its two All Blacks at the time, Tom Cross and Duncan McGregor, and the clubs captain, Hercules Wright.[1] All members of the tour were subsequently banned by the New Zealand Rugby Union for life.
In the 1971 season the Premier team won the Premier competition and the Jubilee Cup for the fifth consecutive season and became the first club in the history of Wellington rugby to achieve this feat since the club competition was commenced in 1868. The first three wins in this sequence were achieved under the leadership of Ken Gray widely considered one of the greatest All Black prop forwards in the history of the game. The Ken Gray Academy was established in 1995 in Ken's name to assist in the development of the best young players wishing to find their way through the Club to the highest representative honours.
The centennial history records that Te Puni arrived in the Hutt Valley in 1817 and died there in 1870. In the first official match ever played by the Petone Club three descendants of Te Puni were included in the fifteen. Today Petone Rugby is a multi-cultural mix in a family-oriented environment. Visitors are always welcome to come in and share its Hospitality.
In November 2006, the club hosted The World Golden Oldies Festival and in 2010 the Club plans to celebrate its 125th Anniversary.
The Club adopted its familiar monogram on the recommendation of its illustrious Life Member and Maori All Black, Matt Love, as part of its 50th Jubilee celebrations in 1935. The monogram is embellished by the words in Maori "kia kaha kia maia" broadly translated as - "give of your best - be confident in your own ability". This reflects the strength of the partnership with Maori in the Club.