100th game for OBU for Hiria McRae this weekend
It’s Wellington club rugby Women’s Gala Day this Saturday with all four matches being played together on the Petone Recreation Ground, and fittingly one of the legends of the local game, Hiria McRae, will be playing her 100th game for the OBU Impalas against Northern United.
Perhaps fittingly too that she’ll be playing at Petone, having also played well over 50 combined games for the Avalon and Petone clubs before joining OBU in 2009.
Prior to that, Hiria, who plays prop and can cover all three front row positions, played several seasons of club rugby from the late 1990s to early 2000s in both Waikato and Bay of Plenty and played Women’s NPC for those two unions as well as the Wellington Pride. She’s one of the most experienced, if not the experienced, top flight club rugby player in Wellington.
From Rotorua, Hiria went to Waikato University and started her career in Hamilton. “The Waikato University club was strong and had two women’s teams, so I started playing in the B team and made it to the A team so that was my grounding in rugby.”
A teacher, she moved home to Rotorua and taught there and played for the Ngonotaha club for a few years before moving to Wellington.
She played approximately 50 games for Avalon between 2003-07 and then played a season for Petone in 2008.
She said there have been many highlights playing in Wellington club rugby.
“Probably the biggest was the 2007 season I had with Avalon. I was lucky enough to captain the team and we dominated the competition that year, winning the first round Fleurs Trophy and the second round Victoria Tavern Trophy.
“Outside of the Wellington-Auckland NPC final in 2006 that final that would’ve been the most focused a team I have been involved in, in winning the Victoria Tavern Trophy that day against Norths.”
That Avalon team was coached Grant Edmonds and Mark Howell, who went on to coach the Wellington Pride.
“Our good form was partly because Hutt Old Boys Marist had won the previous year, they’d folded and a lot of their players came across to us to strengthen our side.”
Hiria said she’s played with and against some great players in her Wellington club rugby career.
“Two players I have played against who I really admire are Becs Liuaana and Tia Paasi, because they really mentored me in my time in the Pride and they were a good measure for me whenever I propped against them.
She explained a key reason why she moved to OBU. “Because of Claire ‘Shorty’ Rowat, Tulia Waterhouse and Jasmine Stephenson. I played with them in the Pride and I really admired their style of rugby and their no-nonsense attitude to training and playing.”
“I stayed with OBU because of the leadership that those three and Bekki Pope showed me.”
She nominated the 2006 Wellington Pride season as being special in her representative career.
“I’ve been lucky to play for three different provinces, but my first year in the Wellington Pride was special because that’s when we won the Women’s NPC.”
“It happened to be a world cup year in 2006 and we had some really strong props. I got to play because Serena Curtis went to represent Samoa. Becs Liuaana and I were propping in that Pride team.
“We were definitely the underdogs in the 2006 NPC, but we just built a great culture. Rick Whatarauwas one of our coaches and he helped bring us together. We had a lot of young players like current leading players Jax Patea and Kat Whata-Simpkins.”
Hiria said the club game’s healthier than it has even been.
“Just the organisation around the game is greater and the standard of play is a lot higher now. Obviously the speed of the game and the skillsets has improved, while the good players are coming through younger now.”
Hiria is also on the WRFU women’s rugby advisory panel and she said that the increasing support given to the game is positive.
“That’s going right through from the schoolgirls grade to the women’s club competition, and it is also about supporting schoolgirls coming through.
“Similarly the increase of clubs in providing academy-type support for the game is great. We have two players in the OBU Academy, Georgia Daals and Hope Hakopa.
What about the expanded competition?
“The expanded 10-team club competition is fantastic for Wellington women’s rugby. I think it’s important to have the first round where all teams are playing each other, because teams can see the standard the top teams are playing at.
“Then in the second round there’s those teams on that verge, like HOBM, MSP and Poneke, they can still get some decent rugby in.
“For us we get the opportunity to give our full squad some game time and to support the new teams coming through.”
Women’s games this weekend are (all at the Petone Rec from 11.30am):
Victoria Tavern Trophy
· Old Boys University v Northern United
· Oriental-Rongotai v Wainuiomata
· Avalon – Bye
Senior Women’s
· Upper Hutt Rams v Johnsonville-Tawa
· Marist St Pat’s v Poneke
Hutt Old Boys Marist - Bye