Every year, Michigan Rugby sends a few select players to travel to Wellington, New Zealand for the summer and have the opportunity to learn and play with the local club, Poneke FC. Kiyan Jacobs, Noah Alvarez, Regan Plank, and Sam Glusker are currently there and documenting their experiences. This entry concerns June 3rd through June 11th.
This past week in Wellington has been a blur. I think it’s safe to say that we’re pretty much fully accommodated, which comes with pros and cons. Obviously, it means we’re much more comfortable, we’re starting to learn how to live in the city, and we gain all of the cool and unique perspective that comes with it. However, it also means the days start to blend together. The majority of our weekdays last week were uneventful, filled with cooking, gym, practice, and desperately looking for work. It was rivalry week for the Poneke Colts, so everyone club-wide was focused and motivated to beat Ories, who had apparently come out on top in every match for a while, with one Colts coach even saying that he had never beaten them in his entire Poneke coaching career. While Regan would be coming off the bench for the team on Saturday, Sam, Noah, and I had the opportunity to play with the club’s men’s team, the Ruffnuts. On Friday, we spent our free night exploring lots of local stores in Lambton Quay and walking down the Northside of Wellington Harbor.
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Saturday brought some of the most stereotypical Wellington winter conditions we’d seen our entire time here. Cold, windy, and bursts of icy rain. While Regan’s game began, the rest of us gathered with the Ruffnuts for pregame in the clubhouse weight room, which had a completely different vibe than Colts pregame, or rather, any sports pregame I had ever been a part of. While the latter tended to be more focused on getting hyped and locked in to take the field, this was a lot more lighthearted. Sam, Noah, and I stood around and greeted a couple of our Colts teammates who would also be playing with the Ruffnuts. Longtime friends were talking and laughing while they dressed, clearly just excited to get to play the sport they love so much on this miserable Saturday afternoon. While I had gotten to the field expecting to come off the bench for the Ruffnuts at flanker, I found out about ten minutes before the game that I would be starting the game at lock. While we went through stretches, warmups, and team runs pregame, I anxiously tried to learn how the guys played so I wouldn’t be completely lost on the field.
As we took the field for kickoff, with Regan finishing up his game across the grounds, one thing was clear: This was the least prepared I was for a game since my first ever game of tackle rugby. Despite my nervousness, I was super excited for this opportunity, and obviously, just to play. I played the entire first half, which felt like forever, through strong winds and whirls of rain. Only a few minutes into the game, I started to feel more confident, taking some dominant carries and just trying to stick to my game. As I was quick to find out, the Ruffnuts also played their own game. And it was a whole lot messier than the Colts’ style of play. It was much more smashmouth and physical, with minimal support on offense and counterrucks reigning supreme. Because of this, there were tons of turnovers, breaks, and confusion. Noah and Sam played in the second half, with Sam even being able to play some fullback, which he was very excited about. Some of the Colts players even came by to cheer us on after their game, which they had won in a thriller. Regan thrived on the bomb squad, making some big tackles and setting strong rucks to secure the win for the Colts.
Although the Ruffnuts ended up losing the game, the sheer love for rugby and community was clear after the game, where guys enthusiastically talked and congratulated each other on a great match. There were even some playful chirps from Ruffnuts players towards the ref of our game, who also happened to be a Ruffnuts coach. After more laughs and daps with our teammates postgame, we headed upstairs to hang out with the rest of the club members and experience Poneke’s post-game day festivities. The four of us hung out and had a nice long conversation with a Poneke vet, who used to play for the club, and whose son now plays on the premier team. He explained the history of the club and reminisced over stories of former Michigan Rugby players who had come to Poneke years ago, namely Joel Conzelmann & Cole Van Harn in 2014. We sat with him, his spouse, and their friends as we watched awards from the day, along with a wholesome trophy presentation in memoriam of a former premier team player. After a couple of hours in the clubhouse, we hurried back to the apartment to get ready for an annual Poneke event, the Red and Black party. We got back to the clubhouse in around an hour, just in time to hang out and dance with teammates. We even had some of out teammates over at our apartment to hang out after the party. As a whole, Saturday was a great testament to the true culture behind this incredible sport, especially in a place where it lives so strongly.
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On Sunday, the four of us decided to walk down the harbor, get some milkshakes, and hike to the peak of Mt. Victoria, where we overlooked the city and watched the sunset. Overall, though, we took the day pretty easy. Monday, though, proved to be much more eventful. I was rudely awoken from my slumber in the middle of the night at 9:30 AM to some great news. The two of us had been placed on a jobsite! I hopped out of bed, grabbed my helmet and neon orange vest, which had been sitting in my closet for two weeks, and walked 15 minutes to the to-be apartment building, which we would be working on. It felt great to finally have some source of income, and to be able to experience a completely different side of Wellington through interacting with our new coworkers, who were justifiably very confused as to why two American college kids just randomly showed up at their jobsite and started carrying a bunch of metal and plywood around. While we were exhausted from work on Monday night, Tuesday was even longer. Our full workday involved being at the site at 7 AM, where we set up flood lights so we could see in the early morning darkness. After a full day of work, Regan and I hurried back to the apartment to get ready for practice.
Since Poneke would be hosting gameday again this upcoming weekend, and rain had made the fields soft and muddy, the club decided to close fields. For us, this meant a half hour of contact and pod work in the turf room followed by, as our coach described it, “old school training”, which turned out just meant a ton of running around the hilly area, followed by a partner circuit. This exhausting day of work and practice finally woke me up to what it meant to actually live in another country. For the next few weeks, we will be experiencing real life, not just vacation. Wednesday proved to reinforce this, as we routinely went through the motions of the rainy Wednesday.
This past week, we were all over the place in terms of real life in Wellington. Our hikes, museum visits, shopping, and mini golf quickly transitioned into a genuine immersion in the local society. We had spent time with a wide range of genuine, real Kiwis, from blue-collar workers to grown men trying to hold onto their athletic outlet. I’m really looking forward to continuing to explore this aspect of living in this city for the rest of my time here. I’m eager to take advantage of the rest of this experience, allowing myself to become as much of a New Zealand resident as I can.
