Wesley RFC now official
You may recall the Wesley RFC became an incorporated society towards the end of last year. In mid-November, playing under the banner of the Patumahoe Panzers, we made our competitive debut, reaching the semi-finals of the Counties-Manukau Sevens tournament.
But we were still just a club in theory - we still needed to be formally incorporated into the Counties-Manukau union. And this could only happen at March's Counties-Manukau RFU AGM.
Fast forward then, to last Monday. With the union solidly in our corner, we expected our incorporation to be a formality but we hadn't reckoned on Manurewa and Wesley's bete noir Andrew Talaimanu.
Rewa led the charge against Wesley with a shameless array of spurious, self-serving and hypocritical arguments that I shall return to in a later post. But one of the principal points made by Rewa Chairman Kere Maihi was that our club would create an "untenable precedent which may adversely affect the very existence of the Clubs in this Union".
How so you might ask? Continued Maihi:
"The Academies being set up so successfully within the various High Schools in the Union, may also consider creating their own “Old Boys” Clubs. The question should be asked, what will happen to the existing Club structures, if school leavers were to no longer follow the path to the local Club?"
Now this argument is certainly worth considering and you can see why the likes of Waiuku, Bombay, Karaka etc might have felt this way. But mighty Manurewa?
After all, isn't Manurewa club already a de facto "old boys" club for Manurewa High School. Not only is Talaimanu, a Manurewa High School old boy, Manurewa club's Director of Rugby, he's also the director of Manurewa High School's rugby academy! The last person in Counties-Manukau who should be complaining about a school's relationship with a club.
This is rank hypocrisy of the silliest kind - petty self-interest masquerading as principle.
Happily, enough clubs within Counties-Manukau could see the bigger picture and Andrew Talaimanu was exposed as a butt-naked Emperor with no clothes.
Personally I hope the Wesley RFC remembers its friends and, in the future, help out the clubs who have helped us (with loan players etc). But I also hope that we remember our enemies and, in particular, the small-minded man who didn't want us to exist. Read more!
But we were still just a club in theory - we still needed to be formally incorporated into the Counties-Manukau union. And this could only happen at March's Counties-Manukau RFU AGM.
Fast forward then, to last Monday. With the union solidly in our corner, we expected our incorporation to be a formality but we hadn't reckoned on Manurewa and Wesley's bete noir Andrew Talaimanu.
Rewa led the charge against Wesley with a shameless array of spurious, self-serving and hypocritical arguments that I shall return to in a later post. But one of the principal points made by Rewa Chairman Kere Maihi was that our club would create an "untenable precedent which may adversely affect the very existence of the Clubs in this Union".
How so you might ask? Continued Maihi:
"The Academies being set up so successfully within the various High Schools in the Union, may also consider creating their own “Old Boys” Clubs. The question should be asked, what will happen to the existing Club structures, if school leavers were to no longer follow the path to the local Club?"
Now this argument is certainly worth considering and you can see why the likes of Waiuku, Bombay, Karaka etc might have felt this way. But mighty Manurewa?
After all, isn't Manurewa club already a de facto "old boys" club for Manurewa High School. Not only is Talaimanu, a Manurewa High School old boy, Manurewa club's Director of Rugby, he's also the director of Manurewa High School's rugby academy! The last person in Counties-Manukau who should be complaining about a school's relationship with a club.
This is rank hypocrisy of the silliest kind - petty self-interest masquerading as principle.
Happily, enough clubs within Counties-Manukau could see the bigger picture and Andrew Talaimanu was exposed as a butt-naked Emperor with no clothes.
Personally I hope the Wesley RFC remembers its friends and, in the future, help out the clubs who have helped us (with loan players etc). But I also hope that we remember our enemies and, in particular, the small-minded man who didn't want us to exist. Read more!
posted by Commander at 9:19 am
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