The venue for Saturday's match is described as, "Among the 10 most beautiful in the country."
The scoreboard said Urenui 27 Mōkau 17 – but the rugby match played in driving rain at Mōkau’s Tainui Domain on Saturday was a victory for both teams.
The home side’s Tainui Rugby Football Club and the Taranaki social side Urenui had to dig deep just to field 15 players, keeping alive an annual competition thought to have run since the mid-1960s.
Tainui president Jeff Davis described the match as was typical wet weather rugby, with lots of dropped balls and scrums.
It would be the only one for the year at the domain, a venue once the scene of a flourishing rugby activity going back decades.
“Back in the day, Taranaki and southern King Country teemed with rugby teams. They once had a team at Waikawau; one at Awakino, two at Mōkau and one at Tongapōrutu,” he said.
But in latter years rural population declines had gutted rugby clubs, illustrated by 2023 census figures putting the population of Mōkau as 100 and that of Urenui just 430.
“You can see why we had a wide range of ages (18 to 48 for Mōkau), fitness levels and quite a few fellas from outside our areas making up the numbers,” Davis added.
Both teams fielded players from Inglewood on Saturday and Mōkau borrowed additional players from Mahoenui and Aria.
“We even had a couple of players from Tokoroa whose dads had Tainui affiliations.”
Davis said it had been a big community effort for both small centres to stage the game and a huge thanks was due to all involved. About 60 people from the Mōkau community turned out to watch and the Mōkau Museum commissioned New Plymouth videographer Keith Finnerty make a documentary of the match. This would eventually be screened alongside other historic films at the Museum’s movie theatre.
“Urenui are just as passionate as us to keep it going. We never practice but we all love playing. I have played for Mōkau for the past 10 years, including alongside a lot of good mates who had moved on to representative footy. I feel proud that I can still strap the boots on and play because a lot of us now can’t,” Davis said.
“The Urenui trophy itself has been retained by Mōkau for the past eight years, and Saturday’s loss did not change that. It resembles the Bledisloe in that the challenger needs two consecutive wins to secure it. We beat Urenui 28-19 in an away match on August 2, so we’ve retained the trophy again this year. Saturday’s game was just for the bragging rights.”
Davis said the level of rugby the Tainui Rugby Football Club had now was the consolidation of everything which had gone before.
Earlier in the year a planned game against New Plymouth’s Spotswood United, was cancelled.
“So Saturday’s game has kept the rugby fire going at Tainui Domain for another year and I’m optimistic we’ll have rugby games there again next year.”
And though Tainui struggled to assemble teams these days this had led locals to try harder and be stronger, Davis said.
“And we own a superb multi-use clubrooms plus a rugby venue described as being among the 10 most beautiful in the country. We just need the players.”
