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Napier Pirate Rugby and Sports Club |
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Written by BMR789
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Monday, 17 July 2006 |
 The Napier Pirate Rugby & Sports Club is one of the oldest and most established sports clubs in the Hawke's Bay. While the main acitivities centre around rugby in all grades from senior to schoolboy, the Club also enjoys the support of affiliated ladies netball and soccer codes.
In the 2004 & 2005 seasons, the Club's premier rugby team has won the top local rugby trophy, the Maddison Trophy, for Hawkes Bay wide senior club competition. It has also supplied a number of rep players for the Hawke's Bay NPC team. In the lower senior grades, the Club has fielded a further three or four teams to ensuring it is able to offer rugby players of all levels and abilities a game at their level.
On any given winter Saturday morning, up to a dozen teams wear the Club's trademark black and white colours in schoolboy J.A.B. competitions. Ladies netball teams play both social and senior levels in their netball competition, while the Shakespeare ladies soccer team compete on Saturday afternoons.
The rugby clubs origins date back to 1886 when the Club was formed and joined six other Clubs as an affiliate of the fledgling Hawke's Bay Rugby Football Union (HBRFU). These were the earliest days of local rugby, with the union itself only a couple of years old. At the time, the Club played on Clive Square and held its meetings and social gatherings in the Terminus Hotel (now the Burger King site). Club colours adopted were an all black strip along with the widely respected insignia of a skull and crossbones which we have recently reinstated to our uniform.
The Club had some good first up results, after the original junior team lost its opening match, it went on to win the junior championship in the inaugural season. In 1887 the first senior team was formed and after losing in the play-off for the 1888 title by the barest of margins 0-3, went one better in 1889 to become champions. The juniors also won their title that year, losing just two matches in the process.
Some memorable performances were put in by the Club in its first 50 or so years, along with the inevitable lows. In the period 1919-28, the senior team was the most feared in Hawke's Bay rugby, champions six times and runners-up in two other years. The provinces team in the first Ranfurly Shield era 1922-27 was littered with Pirates, with seven or eight players in the squad during these heady days. 1928 was arguable Pirates greatest year with three major trophies occupying the trophy cabinet, with junior teams also tasting success during these times.
In 1933, the Club moved to its own gymnasium at McLean Park, where it operated from for over 40 years. In 1946, 20 returning servicemen bolstered the senior team to win the Napier title that season. Among the 223 registered members and four playing teams in the Club at the time, was our first All Black Harry Frazer who played 15 matches for the men in black in both New Zealand and South Africa.
In 1960, the Club changed its name to Colenso Pirate Rugby Club to build on a relationship developed with the new Colenso High School. As the focus of the use of McLean Park, where our Club was then situated, shifted towards supporting the provincial team, the Club decided to relocate to new premises and in 1975 opened the magnificent Clubrooms at Tamatea Park. While the premier team weren't achieving the heady results of earlier decades, lower grade teams regularly tasted success and championship trophies regularly occupying the Club's trophy cabinet.
 Pirates Clubrooms - July 2006
The Club now has a successful premier team. Many players are now regular members of the Hawke's Bay NPC team, 5 having been chosen for the N.Z. Divisional team. One most recent successful player is Daniel Quate, who started started off in our J.A.B. system in 1998 and in 2002 transferred to Southland for NPC Division 1 rugby, where he earned a Super 12 contract with the Otago Highlanders.
The executive committee continues to strive to provide the best possible facilities and equipment, and works closely with Hawke's Bay rugby to develop the best possible rugby for the benefit of the Club and province.
Organisational Name: Napier Pirate Rugby & Sports Club Inc.
Affiliated Teams: Premier, Senior 2, Senior 4, Colts, Junior Advisory Board Schoolboy Rugby (JAB)
Colours: Black and White
Phone Number: 06 8438824
Delivery Address: undefined
Street Address: undefined
Directions to Ground: undefined
Contact Person: Lindsey Ellison
Contact Title: Club Captain
Home Phone:
Mobile Phone: 0274449970
Fax:
Email:
Major Sponsor:
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Last Updated ( Monday, 17 July 2006 )
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