Sports News and Articles

An estimated 2500 people converged on Memorial Park sports grounds over the weekend for the 2026 Douglas Park AFC Junior Tournament. 84 teams from Wairarapa, Wellington, Hutt Valley, Palmerston North and Dannevirke took part in this year’s competition. Coordinator Sophie Van wijk said that the annual tournament for teams in the 8th to 13th grades was extremely popular. “It’s a fun event. The main point is to get kids playing football.” She added that it’s a big event for the

Wairarapa midfielder Bethany Ifill has been selected in the Capital Football Girls’ U18 team to compete in the 2026 Youth National League. After a vigorous series of selection evaluations, a large contingent of applicants was eventually whittled down to the final squad of twenty-five players. Bethany Ifill with the trophies she was awarded at Wairarapa United’s prize giving on Saturday night. Ifill, who has shown impressive ball skills in her recent outings for Wairarapa Unit

It looks like it will be an exciting summer season ahead for the Giants Blue softball team as they move up from Premier 2 to the Intercity Premier Reserve competition. Club stalwart Allan Clarke says the club has secured Australian U18 national pitcher Jaxon Mulaga to the club. Unfortunately he will miss the Blues first game because of other commitments but he arrives in Masterton on October 12 so should be available for the team’s second game. Giants will also field a team i

A good crowd turned up for the opening day of summer season bowls at the Lakeside Bowling Club on Sunday. Referring to its location in the heart of Queen Elizabeth Park, club president Steve Elliott describes the club as “probably the prettiest bowling club in Wairarapa - possibly the country,” and indeed it is a nice place to be on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The club, which is in it’s third year after the amalgamation of the Landsdowne and Park clubs, meets every Sunday after

Forty-two bowlers took advantage of a perfect sunny afternoon to participate in the opening round of Bowls Wairarapa Midweek Triples tournament held at the Masterton Bowling Club on Wednesday. Five Wairarapa clubs were represented at the annual competition, and judging by the folk I spoke to, they were all thoroughly enjoying getting back out onto the green after the winter season. The music was great too - I wonder how many people would thought that lawn bowlers would have C

Despite losing their latest home game in the Manawatu Rugby league Premier One competition against Linton Cobras, the Pioneer Rugby League team not only played well but look to be a very good side. It was only a couple of unfortunate soft tackles and a barrage of tries late in the game that let the visitors cement a 44-30 win. Pioneer started very well scoring two converted tries in the opening minutes to lead 12-nil but it didn’t take too long for Linton to get to grips with

Greytown always looked likely to be at the top end of the Capital Premier league table this year and they confirmed their dominance with a decisive 6-0 win over Wellington Marist on Saturday. After beating their two main rivals, Wellington Phoenix U18’s and Wellington Olympic Reserves in recent weeks, Greytown finished the year three points clear of the Phoenix with the very good figures of sixteen wins, one draw and one loss from their eighteen games. On top of those statist

Any grand final game can be tense and exciting, and sometimes tedious, or as with Dalefield’s Women’s Premier final against Hutt United, unpredictable. A team that dominated the competition all season looked a little weak and ultimately endured their only loss in the most important game of the year. Although there’s no doubt that the Hutt team outplayed Dalefield, it is interesting that a team that was so good and dominant throughout the year can play the final game without t