I’m going to be real with you. I had blocked out this week to give you a breakdown of the Aupiki hype off the back of what I assumed for be a competition launch week. We are just two weeks out from kick off but of course they only dropped the Super Rugby Pacific content this week.
The men’s launch was all big budget and media coverage but still not quite it. Did anyone else find it odd that a Fijian hymn is this major tournaments backing track? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful song the Drua sing but is it their launch video? Would they have its English translation, Hallelujah, over the men making tackles and lifting in lineouts? Seems like culture washing you know? Trying to appeal without fully understanding.
I assume the women must still be climbing up the mountain we will panning around in the epic Aupiki launch, right? Right?
Well, I’m not going to hold my breath. Instead, seeing that this launch will not be coming any time soon, I’m going to do my best to fill this gap and bring you the details I would like to see. I have fired off a couple of texts and will give you a team promo from the perspective of a couple of players (and maybe a coach?) over the next fortnight, ahead of the first game on March 2nd.
In the meantime though, I need your help filling in some other gaps! The lovely Erin Rush (Black Fern #113) and a crew of women here in Wellington have been working away trying to assemble a full list of Wellington Pride players. The plan is to then assign playing numbers so we everyone who comes into that environment can understand where we stand in our team’s story.
To begin, they were provided a list of initials and last names, alongside their debut year and the club they debuted out of. In the men’s game that would be enough because the clubs would proudly remember the full names of all those that played representative rugby for them. Actually, in the men’s game Wellington Rugby itself would know all these players already and have invited them to functions for years but ANYWAY.
We are dealing with women’s rugby which means we are wrestling with a history of poorly kept records. Coupled with the fact that last names from the 1990s are more or less useless as women have a pesky habit of changing them.
Nevertheless, Erin and her crew have persisted and have whittled this list down to just a handful now that we are trying to get the final information for. So here are the lists of those players with missing details, organised by clubs. Would appreciate any assistance you could give to fill in the gaps:
Fort Dorset
1990 - D Powell
Oriental Rongotai
1995 - S Hunua
S Sione
1998 - D Higginbotham
Wellington
1995 - S Gray
1999 - C Forrest
Poneke
1994 - F Howard
1999 - K van Hess (there is a chance that this is Kate van Ness who played for Wellington Club a year later)
Northern United
1990 - L Englebrecht
1991 - I Feiteli
1993 - A Ioane
1994 - K Masoe
1995 - N Dawson
N Lawson
1996 - P Faraimo
J Masoe
1997 - H Wineer
Paremata - Plimmerton
1990 - C Houia
E Leota
1992 - CL Edmonds
ER Ratu
1993 - L Lua
Johnsonville
1990 - C Hopkins
2002 - RJ O’Connor
2004 - LA Pedro
Since popping this up on Instagram, I now know that it is Leitu Sa and Maria (Mau) Tavita :)
Petone
1993- D Barrett
P Taupo
1997 - M Lee
Avalon
1994 - BJ Murdoch
Stokes Valley
1991 - S Lee
T Tuitama
1994 - C Edmonds (could be CJ Edmonds who played for Paremata Plimmerton)
L Lua’a (could be L Lua who played for Paremata Plimmerton)
Wellington Secondary Schools
1996 - H Gibb
I hope to be able to find this full list so we can start to know our full history. So if you you have any inkling, please get in touch.
With you,
Alice