Club Rugby: Marist celebrates popular club man
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Logan Savory wraps up Saturday’s action from round three of Southland’s premier club rugby competition.
Saturday’s result might not have been all that pleasant for the Miller St faithful, but the day was still a special one for those aligned to the Marist Rugby Club.
Marist celebrated one of its more important figures over the past 14 years.
Scott Eade brought up game No 150 for Marist when the veteran first five-eighth came off the bench in the green-and-blacks’ 45-10 loss to the high-flying Pirates-Old Boys.
The former New Zealand U20s first five-eighth is now on the coaching pathway as he starts to inch towards an end to his playing days.
However, there was a milestone the former Stag was keen to tick off this season - that being his 150th appearance in the Marist jersey.
Eade joined Marist straight out of school in 2011, despite having no real ties to the club at that point.
“My family is actually from Pirates, and I played my junior rugby for Eastern Hawks, which is what it was called back then,” Eade told The Tribune.
“But you go to Boys’ High and lose a bit of a connection with a club and I had a pretty open mind.
“A lot of my mates from Boys’ High were going to Marist and I knew Jamie McKenzie well at the time, he was coaching Marist and was pretty persuasive, so I went along there.
“You can see it now; guys go with their mates and at that time there was a whole wave of us who went from Boys’ High to Marist.”
While Eade arrived at Marist with no real connection to the club in 2011, 14 years on the 32-year-old is now very much a Marist man through and through.
He has done plenty for the club, not just through his playing abilities but also via his on and off-field leadership over the year.
In recent years he has operated in a player-coach capacity at Marist.
He remembers game No 1 in 2011 well. It was a showdown at Miller St against a Blues team that featured current Stags coach James Wilson.
No other Marist player from that 2011 debut team are still playing today.
It took a few years but by 2017 Eade led Marist to break a 16-year Galbraith Shield drought.
“The first two years I played for Marist we were a bit rubbish, but we had a really young team, and we built.
“Skelty [Peter Skelt] turned up in 2013 and we made the final in 2014 and got canned by Woodlands. We made the final again [in 2015] and lost to Star.
“It was two years later [in 2017] when we finally won, and we obviously we won two in a row.”
In 2019 Marist looked odds on to win another Galbraith Shield title when they went through the round-robin phase unbeaten, but they were tipped up by 4th placed Star in the semifinal.
It’s been a challenging start to the 2025 season for Marist. They did pick up a tight victory over Blues in round one before being dispatched 50-3 by Woodlands and then 45-10 by Pirates-Old Boys on Saturday.
Pirates-Old Boys scored seven tries against Marist with elusive winger Issac Rounds scoring three himself.
It took Pirates-Old Boys 15 minutes to open the scoring when Rounds scored the first of his three.
Pirates-Old Boys scored two further first half tries to lead 19-0 at halftime before Dustin Coveney scored after halftime to make it 26-0.
Then come a moment in Scott’s Eade 150th he probably won’t appreciate The Tribune reminding everyone about.
In Eade’s first touch after coming off the bench he threw an intercept pass.
But it was the person who latched onto that intercept that would have added to Eade’s frustration.
It was replacement Pirates-Old Boys hooker Shaun Kempton who pounced and ran in a long-range try.
Kempton is part of Rugby Southland’s academy which Eade runs. Kempton was also coached by Eade in the Southland U19 last year and in the Highlanders U20 team last month.
Just 24 hours before Saturday’s club game, during a conversation with The Tribune, Eade described Kempton’s knack of being able to read a play well and pick off an intercept in pretty much every game he plays in.
Kempton backed that point up just 24 hours later, the problem is it was at Eade’s expense.
It took 12 months, but the Woodlands Rugby Club has a long memory and on Saturday they latched onto the opportunity for the pay-back they were after.
On April 20, 2024, Woodlands suffered one of the club’s toughest losses in its proud 127-year history when Star ran riot in a 78-28 victory at Woodlands.
Remarkably 54 of Star’s points that day came in the second half alone, and to add that bleak day the Scruffy Butt Memorial Trophy was up for grabs.
The Scruffy Butt Memorial Trophy is played for each year between Star and Woodlands when the two teams meet in the holders’ first home game of the season.
The Godfather of the Woodlands Rugby Club - Jason Rutledge - by all accounts sent a pretty firm reminder this week of what took place 12 months ago.
There was no shortage of motivation.
It was time for some payback as holders Star put up the Scruffy Butt Memorial Trophy on Saturday at Waverly Park.
The 27-23 victory was far from one-sided, but Woodlands got the job done as the prized trophy made the trip back to Woodlands on Saturday evening.
Woodlands opened the scoring through a try to hooker Nathan Va’atausili after just five minutes, but it didn’t take long for Star to respond when new recruit Sam Mustchin dotted down.
Last year Rugby Southland Pathways Manager Scott Eade came across Mustchin who played for St Andrew’s College in Christchurch and was part of the Crusaders U18 team for two years.
Mustchin decided to link with Rugby Southland’s academy and originally had made the shift to study in Dunedin and was going to play his club rugby there.
However, just this week he had a change in mind and the Highlanders U20s representative made the shift to Invercargill and linked with Star.
He was initially named on the Star bench after just arriving but ended up starting at second five-eighth and the teenager turned out to be one of Star’s best performers on Saturday.
Halfbacks Liam Howley and Jackson Hughan traded tries before a nicely placed Howley kicked set up second five-eighth Fletcher Morgan to score as Woodlands went into a halftime break with a 19-15 lead.
Star hit the lead with a Fale Iosefa try early in the second half, but it was short-lived with Woodlands responding with a try to Drew Carter out wide to make it 24-20.
Mustchin banged over a penalty with about 13 minutes to play to put Star within one point at 24-23.
He then lined up an ambitious 50m kick on the angle with about seven minutes to play which would have put Star in front. Mustchin had no problem with the distance, but the wind pushed it wide.
Woodlands then got themselves at the right end of the field to close out the game and in the last act of the 80 minutes Morgan kicked a penalty to push the final score to 27-23.
On top of Mustchin’s strong first-up performance, his midfield partner Fale Iosefa was destructive in defence while halfback Jackson Hughan tried his best to spark Star’s attack.
Morgan was good again for Woodlands at second five-eighth while Va’atausili carried the ball well.
It took a while for the Eastern-Northern Barbarians to shake a spirited Blues outfit at on Saturday, but a dominant final 10 or 15 minutes lifted the Barbarians to a bonus point 37-21 victory.
Blues have been the big improver from 2024 to the early rounds of 2025 and for a good chunk of Saturday’s outing the big and physical Blues outfit had the Barbarians under pressure.
Blues added another handy addition to its setup on Saturday with Connor Rous linking with the Invercargill club after making a shift from Australia.
Brad Kooman again highlighted his worth to the Blues setup with the fullback dotting down twice against the Barbarians after his hat-trick against Star seven days earlier.
But a key difference on Saturday might have been a Barbarians outside back with wing Banuve Dretiverata looking for plenty of work and was rewarded with a brace of tries.
Looseforward Jacob Coghlan and midfielder Angus Simmers both turned in strong performances in their 50th out for the Barbarians, with Coghlan particularly good.
With the game in the balance in the second half the Barbarians were dealt a blow when the game was forced to uncontested scrums following injuries to Blues frontrowers.
The scrum and its depth in the front row are the Barbarians’ strength, which was highlighted by their scrum dominance on Saturday.
But even with that strength negated with uncontested scrums the country team still found a way to get the job done late.
It was a good way to bounce back from the Barbarians’ disappointing 48-10 loss to Pirates-Old Boys seven days earlier.
Barbarians coach AJ Aitken is content with where the team is at at this point with two wins and a loss through the first three games.
“At the end of the day, we are pretty much where we want to be from our point of view. I think the players have got pretty high standards of how they are going, and we all agree we’ve still got a long way to go but I think [Saturday] was another good step in the right direction for us.
“It’s just about building I suppose, you don’t want to peak too early,” Aitken said.
(Premier Women)
Marist/Midlands 42, Pioneer 24
Star 71, Blues 0
Albion 56, Wakatipu 14
(Division One)
Edendale 60, Te Anau 17
Wyndham 33, Albion 13
Waikaka/Riversdale 56, Bluff 47
Pioneer 47, Tokanui 3
(Division Two)
Otautau-Ohai-Nightcaps 40, Mataura 14
Drummond-Limehills-Star 32, Wright's Bush 29
Waikiwi 55, Collegiate 7
Midlands 36, Central Pirates 12
Waiau Star 10, Wakatipu 3
Riverton 33, Mossburn 12
Woodlands 32, Blues 7
Pirates-Old Boys 38, Marist 7