A decade of rugby league is set to be celebrated in Aoraki this year.
The season opened on the weekend with an inaugural visit to the newly-redeveloped Fraser Park.
The Timaru Outlaws took on the Country Cowboys in a thrilling opening day contest that ended with the Outlaws pipping the Cowboys 36-34.
Aoraki Rugby League committee member Nathan Robinson said league was very much on an upward trend.
‘‘We’re growing in numbers, the crowd at Fraser Park was big and the result was a fair representation of the game.
‘‘The refereeing’s a lot better, and the players are adjusting to the refereeing standard.
‘‘Reon [Hatata] and his crew are really good referees, and it’s making us play good footy.
‘‘We’re into our 10th year now, so it just shows that league is around to stay.’’
He said the use of Fraser Park could play a big part in pushing the sport even further forward.
‘‘The facilities are outstanding, it’s really accessible.
‘‘It doesn’t matter who plays here, they’re going to really enjoy playing at Fraser Park.
‘‘For the Aoraki Eels we’ll have to check the Heartland draw out, and check with New Zealand Rugby League what our draw looks like.’’
If Heartland were not at Fraser Park one weekend he hoped they could play at the stadium.
‘‘The notion going forward is to keep building that rapport with not just the community, but also the rugby union.
‘‘The facility is so good, so it would be great to have those facilities on hand.’’
The goal for the season was to solidify the financial side of sport, Mr Robinson said.
‘‘We’re in good space now but like any sport everything costs everything.
‘‘We can’t go to Oamaru, Christchurch or Greymouth without sponsors, community grants and funding.
‘‘So it’s just getting the financial side of things done so our kids and adults can play a high-level of representative footy.
‘‘For me, it’s getting the monetary sorted and then back to the sport itself and investing in good coaching.’’
The junior side of the game was also going from strength to strength, he said.
‘‘We play that competition in the spring.
‘‘We have U7s, U9s, U11s, U13s and we’re getting four to five teams per grade which is really, really good.
‘‘Last year our Aoraki U14s went away to the South Island tournament and beat Canterbury 52-0 in the final.
‘‘The U14s have been playing league since day one, so it just shows really good pathways.
‘‘We just had three boys go to a [Sydney] Roosters camp on the weekend.’’
Mr Robinson said a number of local boys were making big strides in the game.
‘‘My son Jackson has just signed a three-year deal with the Warriors and we have Dougal Grant already playing for the Warriors U17s.
‘‘We’re doing something good here with the kids, and it’s getting noticed now in the NRL systems as well.’’
He said the Warriors had just started an academy in Timaru.
‘‘They see that there’s something here, we’ve got nine kids, including a girl, that will be going twice a week to the gym and training every second Sunday with Warriors’ coaches.’’
It was nice to look back on all the hard work it took to get to this point, he said.
‘‘To be fair it’s been a hard eight out of 10 years, day one was just outrageously terrible.
‘‘We’re showing now that we are playing league at a good level, we’re all turning corners.
‘‘It’s really good to sit back and be able to use Fraser Park and have that communication with them.
‘‘Everything’s really good and hopefully we just keep those avenues, and the kids keep knocking on doors and more pathways is good for everyone to be fair.’’
