@mohikamo some very good coms, I can remember attending club games in the Bay of Islands in the 70s and the quality in the Bay at the time was very good and well supported..and then attending the Harding Shield rally days and those games were another level.Even Hokianga who were the weakest of the 6 sub union teams would never roll over..
One area I know Northland really struggles with is trying to retain really promising youngsters, and to be honest you can’t blame parents for letting their kids take up a scholarship at an Auckland secondary school..there are many examples of kids that gone to Auckland and have ended up in either the Auckland system or have been picked by other franchises..we get the odd or 2 back, but in the whole a lot of the cream gets picked off..I must reiterate again I have no issue with that, if I were a parent I would be encouraging my child to the same thing..
I was told on Saturday that the current Auckland under 19 team has 6 Northlanders in their top side , The Auckland development has 3 Northlanders , both Matt Storm and Johnny Cooper and there’s one other that escapes my mind and the Auckland top side Waimana Reidlinger Kapa who I know would dearly love to come home and play for Northland..
The dynamics of the early years have changed, it’s very difficult to put a senior club team together in a rural area when many of your young males have moved away from an area because of lack of work..you do need a strong local community bond and a couple of strong driven coaches and they need to be supported 100%
I stopped into Okaihau yesterday on my way back from visiting Whanau at a fantastic Cafe,Kiwi Kai, I recommend it big time, the best pulled pork Panini I have tasted, ordered a 2nd one it was that good..
I looked out on to the street remembering passing a rugby ball across the street with my team mates as on a Saturday morning waiting for car pooling parents to pick us up.
There were some young boys from Okaihau college during the lunch break walking down the street passing a rugby ball, a couple of these kids were sizeable lads as well..
I spoke to the owner of Kiwi Kai , Murray Smith ,he told me that his nephew was Tom Smith who made his debut for the Taniwha on Saturday ..what a small world I thought ..
Murray also mentioned there was a ton of young talent around but it need good structures and more importantly a good competitive competition which really brings the cream to the top .
Thats something I remembered about the Bay of Islands competition in the 1970s..waiting for the club results to come through on radio Northland ,most of the games would be extremely close ..and of course the bottom lip would drop if Okaihau seniors had gone down haha..
The old times I guess will never be the same, but if you have raw talent, put a structure in place that at least gives at a pathway hopefully to go on and wear a Taniwha jersey..
We have got to take note as a union ,its actually heart breaking to see what Southland is going through at the minute, a neglected club competition and player development has bitten them big time.
