North Harbour Rugby Union

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North Harbour Rugby Union
Nickname(s) North Harbour
Harbour
Founded 1985
Ground North Harbour Stadium
Capacity 25,000
Coach Flag of New Zealand Allan Pollock
League Air New Zealand Cup
2006 Quarter-finalists
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, 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).

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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.

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 1.

North Harbour are now the current holders of the "Log of Wood" and are likely to remain so at least until Round 1 of the 2007 Air New Zealand Cup season. Under the rules of the Shield challenge, they must defend the Shield before the 2007 season against teams in New Zealand's second tier domestic competition, the semi-professional Heartland Championship. Accordingly, they have scheduled defences against Thames Valley on 30 June 2007 and (assuming they still hold the Shield) Horowhenua-Kapiti on 14 July.[1]

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:

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.

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 1995 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 25,000 spectators.

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.

The following is a list of players signed to play for the North Harbour Air New Zealand Cup team in 2006:

Lomu is making a comeback from a life-threatening kidney disease, culminating in a transplant in 2004. He was signed to play for Harbour in 2005, but missed the season due to a shoulder injury suffered in Martin Johnson's testimonial. Ankle injuries in Wales in early 2006 and in New Zealand club rugby in July 2006 delayed his top-flight New Zealand comeback until the fourth fixture in Round 1 of the 2006 Air New Zealand Cup.[1]. Lomu made his first appearance for North Harbour, as a substitute in the game against Wellington in Week 4, which Harbour won 35-16.

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:

  • Frano Botica (former All Black and Former Kiwi League International)
  • Frank Bunce (former All Black centre)
  • Buck Shelford (former All Black captain and former North Harbour coach)
  • Walter Little (former All Black second-five eight)
  • Ian Jones (former All Black Lock)
  • Eric Rush (former All Black Winger and Captain of NZ 7's)
  • Slade McFarlane
  • Glen Osborne (former All Black Fullback and Makakaho Rd Pig Hunting World Champion)
  • Liam Barry
  • Kevin Borovich (former All Black)
  • Willie Lose (former Tongan international team captain and lock, now a TV & Radio personality)
  • Rico Gear (now plays for Tasman Makos)
  • Nick Evans (now plays for Otago)
  • Kevin Senio
  • Tusi Pisi
  • Rico Gear
  • Tevita Taumoepeau

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)

  1. ^ North Harbour announces 2007 Ranfurly Shield defences. AllBlacks.com (2006-11-29). Retrieved on 2007-02-04.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../n/o/r/North_Harbour_Rugby_Union_b461.html"
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