Club Rugby: Smiles, yarns, and tries at Wrights Bush
Sunday, 2 June 2019
For most of the 2019 Bush Pirates players, Saturday dished up the biggest rugby game they will ever take part in.
Hundreds of people showed up to the small central Southland settlement of Wrights Bush to take in the Bush Pirates and Drummond-Limehills-Star division two club rugby fixture.
The Bush Pirates team is an amalgamation of the Wrights Bush and Central Pirates senior teams.
At the weekend the Wrights Bush Rugby Club celebrated its centennial with one of the highlights being that Bush Pirates and DLS division two showdown.
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Callum Stuart doubles as both a player in the Bush Pirates team and the Wrights Bush Rugby Club president.
He said the current Wrights Bush players were determined to play their part in front of the many old timers who had travelled from throughout the country for the occasion.
The 12-10 loss against the more fancied DLS team was not the result they were after, but Stuart still felt they put together a performance fitting for the day.
He declared it their best showing of the season and could not fault the effort.
Both teams scored two tries apiece with just a conversion separating the teams at the final whistle after Bush Pirates earlier led 5-0 at halftime.
'[Drummond-Limehills-Star] knew they were going to be in for a battle and we gave them that,' Stuart said.
Fittingly a former Wrights Bush junior player, and former international rugby referee, Keith Brown had the whistle in hand for the memorable day for country rugby in Southland.
On top of the division two fixture, a Wrights Bush Invitational team was formed for the day to take on the Central Pirates president's grade team.
It provided many Wrights Bush players from yesteryear with the chance to dust off the boots, while three generations of Houstons, Trevor, Deon, and David all got the opportunity to line up together.
The Wrights Bush club's junior teams also played on Saturday.
The centennial celebrations started on Friday night with a get together at the Whitehouse Hotel where former All Black first five-eighth and Ranfurly Shield-winning coach Simon Culhane was the guest speaker.
On Saturday night close to 300 attended the Wrights Bush centennial dinner at the Workingmen's Club in Invercargill where Kiwi Paralympic skier Adam Hall was the guest speaker.
Hall's uncle Evan Patterson and grandfather George Patterson are both life members of the Wrights Bush Rugby Club.
There was also an auction which provided a pointer to just how well the club had done to make it to the 100-year mark.
In 1995 the club's committee brought a brand new set of playing jerseys for its senior team.
However, those jerseys never even made it out of the plastic packaging.
In 1996 the club was not able to field a senior team and there was a 10-year hiatus before a lot of hard work seen Wrights Bush return again.
Those jerseys were embroidered as special centennial jerseys and auctioned to raise funds for the club on Saturday night.
Stuart said the entire weekend was a special one for Wrights Bush, not just in terms of rugby, but the community in general.
'There were a lot of smiles, a lot of yarns from the old days. It was great to put some faces to the names of people who we had heard a lot about,' Stuart said.
RESULTS
Premier
(Galbraith Shield)
Eastern-Northern Barbarians 24, Marist 12; Star 23, Woodlands 14; Blues 10, Pirates-Old Boys 0.
(Ack Soper Shield)
Wyndham 31, Waikaka 0; Te Anau 26, Riversdale 12; Edendale 29, Riversdale 19.
Division One
Star 24, Waiau Star 21; Albion Excelsior 46, Waikiwi 19; Pioneer 25, Wakatipu 6; Mossburn 40, Blues 19.
Division Two
Drummond-Limehills-Star 12, Bush Pirates 10.