North Harbour Rugby Union

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North Harbour Rugby Union
Nickname(s) North Harbour
Harbour
Founded 1985
Region Blues
Ground(s) North Harbour Stadium
Capacity 19,000
Coach Flag of New Zealand Wayne Pivac [1]
League Air New Zealand Cup
2007 9th
Team colours Team colours Team colours
Team colours
Team colours
　
Home colours
Team colours Team colours Team colours
Team colours
Team colours
　
Away colours

The North Harbour Rugby Union (NHRU), commonly referred to colloquially as North Harbour or simply Harbour, is a provincial rugby team which competes in the Air New Zealand Cup, the successor to the country's former domestic competition, the National Provincial Championship (NPC).

Contents

[edit] Area

North Harbour Rugby encompasses a geographical area that is situated in North Shore City, Rodney district and part of Waitakere City. There are 12 rugby clubs from Mahurangi in the north through to the North Shore club based in Devonport, North Shore City, the southernmost area of the union.

[edit] Ranfurly Shield

After 10 previous unsuccessful challenges for the Ranfurly Shield, most notably 1996 when they challenged for it three times in 6 weeks against Taranaki, Waikato and Auckland, North Harbour succeeded in their eleventh challenge for the shield on 24 September 2006 by beating the previous holders Canterbury 21-17 at Jade Stadium in Christchurch [2].

Under the rules of the Shield challenge, they had to defend the Shield before the 2007 Air New Zealand Cup season against teams in New Zealand's second tier domestic competition, the semi-professional Heartland Championship. Accordingly, they scheduled defences against Thames Valley on 30 June 2007 and Horowhenua-Kapiti on 14 July.[3] Harbour easily won their first defence 69-0 over Thames Valley,[4] and followed it up two weeks later with an impressive 99-6 victory over Horowhenua-Kapiti.[5] [6].

After defeating Taranaki 19-13 in their first challenge in the Air New Zealand Cup, North Harbour lost the Ranfurly Shield to Waikato by a record margin of 52-7.

[edit] Representative rugby

Representative teams from North Harbour take part in both national and regional competitions. The North Harbour Senior side plays in the Air New Zealand Cup.

Apparel is supplied by Canterbury of New Zealand. Main sponsors are:

[edit] North Harbour in Super Rugby

As North Harbour is one of three Air New Zealand Cup provinces involved in the Blues franchise which takes part in the annual Southern Hemisphere Rugby Super 14 competition, their players are eligible to be picked by the Blues without relying on player drafting, thus, North Harbour players can be seen in Blues jerseys regularly also.

At the beginning of Super Rugby, North Harbour was part of the Chiefs franchise as a combined team of Auckland and North Harbour was thought to be unfair by the NZRU; Auckland and North Harbour collectively had a large percentage of the All Blacks of the time. Later however, North Harbour along with Northland were 'swapped' for Counties Manukau and, thus joined the Blues.

[edit] History

North Harbour was formed in 1985 from clubs which broke away from the Auckland Rugby Union. During this time the union's team has developed a reputation for playing quality rugby football.

North Harbour has enjoyed a great deal of success on the rugby field having produced All Blacks and other New Zealand Representative players, and also winning the 3rd division title in their first year, then promotion to NPC Division 1, and making the finals of the NPC competition on several occasions during the 90's, and hosted the 1994 final at a capacity-crowd Onewa Domain against Auckland.

Onewa Domain, Northcote was the former home based for North Harbour rugby

North Harbour players play in the Rugby Super 14 competition as part of the Auckland Blues partnership with the neighbouring Northland and Auckland unions.

With the development of the North Harbour Stadium at Albany in the late 90's, this stadium became the home base of Harbour rugby. This futuristic multipurpose stadium can contain over 20,000 spectators.

[edit] Club and High-school Rugby

The club rugby season runs annually from March through to the beginning of August.

There are also 16 secondary schools fielding close to 100 teams within the North Harbour Region. Due to the ratio of secondary schools to rugby clubs, there is a strong relationship between the two.

[edit] Member clubs

[edit] Current players

The following is a list of players signed to play for the North Harbour Air New Zealand Cup team in 2007

[edit] Former players

These are players who have played for North Harbour in the past and have gone on to play international rugby and accomplish other feats as listed:

Te Rua Reihana Tipoki Captain 2005-2006 First ever North Harbour captain to win ranfurly shield 2006

[edit] Playing History

1998 .. 7th ..
1999 .. beaten Semi-Finalist .. (came 4th in the Round Robin and lost to Auckland in the semis)
2000 .. 5th
2001 .. beaten Semi-Finalist .. (came 2nd in the Round Robin)
2002 .. 7th
2003 .. 8th
2004 .. 6th
2005 .. beaten Semi-Finalist .. (came 3rd in the Round Robin; lost to Auckland)
2006 .. beaten Quarter-Finalist ..(came 2nd in Pool A; ranked 3rd after Top Six; lost to Otago in Quarter-Final)won ranfurly shield off canterbury for the first time in the ranfurly shield history.Te Rua Tipoki captain.NZ Maori captain,now playing for Munster Ireland.
2007 .. 9th

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ TVNZ Harbour appoint Pivac. Jan 24, 2007. Accessed July 3, 2007.
  2. ^ ONE Sport. "Ranfurly Shield heading North", TVNZ, 2009-09-24. Retrieved on 2007-07-11. 
  3. ^ North Harbour announces 2007 Ranfurly Shield defences. AllBlacks.com (2006-11-29). Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  4. ^ Knight, Linsday. "Rugby: Swamp Foxes frustrate fast-starting Harbour", The New Zealand Herald, 2007-07-01. Retrieved on 2007-07-08. 
  5. ^ Knight, Linsday. "Rugby: Spirited visitors have no answer", The New Zealand Herald, 2007-07-15. Retrieved on 2007-07-15. 
  6. ^ "Rugby: Harbour welcome duo back", TVNZ, 2007-07-11. Retrieved on 2007-07-11. 
  7. ^ NZPA. Rugby: I'm not abandoning NZ, says McAlister "New Zealand Herald", July 24th 2007. Accessed July 24 2007.
  8. ^ Paul, Gregor. Evans' move north sparks Auckland and Harbour interest "New Zealand Herald", May 29th 2007. Accessed July 3 2007.
  9. ^ NZPA. Rugby: Evans signs with Auckland "New Zealand Herald", July 24th 2007. Accessed July 24 2007.

[edit] External links

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