The Pride of the Hutt Valley - and the Melbourne Storm...

The Pride of the Hutt Valley - and the Melbourne Storm NRL club... By Peter Petterson First published at Qondio: The photographs attached are of my 15 year old grandson, Pride Petterson - Robati, from the Hutt Valley in Wellington, New Zealand. who has been signed up for a six year contract with the Melbourne Storm NRL professional rugby league club in Melbourne, part of the Australian National Rugby League competition. The talented rugby league player has had a great season locally. His Upper Hutt Tigers club Under 15 side won their competition. His Wellington Orcas U15 rep side finished second in the national competition. He was top try scorer and points scorer. Once this competition was completed, he was called into his Upper Hutt College school team for the play-offs of the Wellington Secondary Schools competition. They won the final for the third successive year. Last year Pride competed in school athletic events, being placed in the Wellington representative shot put and javelin finals. He was awarded the Top Sportsmen of the Year award at Upper Hutt College, and was a member of the champion rugby league team as well, at the age of 14 years. He was discovered by the Melbourne Storm at a bootcamp trial in Lower Hutt late in 2009. He has competed at the provincial level in rugby league for many years. He was also nominated in the NZ Merit Team this year. This is a non-playing side to recognise those players not eligible for The New Zealand Junior Kiwis rugby league team. Pride is a very modest young man who is a dedicated player and trainer. His fitness is unparalled by other players of his age grade. His manager described him as the best player of his age in New Zealand. Obviously the Melbourne Storm thinks so very highly of him to contract him for so many years - an investment for the future. He is a tall, powerfully built, extremely fit young footballer of huge potential. Playing football is only half of the deal; young players also have to prepare for life after football. The Melbourne Storm will finance Pride through one of the top schools in Melbourne during 2011, to do an accountancy course. He actually did well at school back in New Zealand during 2010. He will live with a local family, will be paid living expences and an allowance in future dependant on his age and playing grade. He will be flown back to his family regularly. He is at present on holiday leave with the club - returning to Melbourne on Jan 10 2011. Barring injuries and unexpected circumstances, this young man should be ready for the top level in about five years. We all wish him luck. The Pride of his family, his friends his football club and his country. He is and will for ever remain our little Pride. Good luck! Contributor's NoteWe are extremely proud of this young man with such huge potential.

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Lightning struck again - All Blacks crash out of the Rugby World Cup once again...

Well lightning struck again recently. The undoubted form and class rugby team of recent years failed at the World Rugby Cup. And brought down in a French ambush once again. What happened?

The All Blacks can beat any team in the world in a series, but in one off sudden death games it gets unstuck.It wins Southern Hemisphere Tri Nations Tournaments nearly every year. The same with The Bledisloe Cup matches against Australia. It thrashed the Lions at home a couple of years ago. It won a grand slam against the Home Nations last year.This year?

Let me tell you that Graham Henry got his own way as coach of the All Blacks and the NZRFU spent 50 million NZ dollars trying to win the RWC.

The All Blacks played wonderful rugby for three years and developed some wonderful players. Henry almost had two players in every position, except he never replaced Tana Umaga at outside centre, and used the world's potentially best fullback,Mils Muliaina, at centre when the other players failed for one reason or other, mostly through injuries.

Graham Henry's reconditioning programme, which saw 22 of the best All Blacks taken out of Super 14 for eight weeks, resulted in the AB's being underdone and injury prone at the business end of the world cup.The South Africans had the right programme, won the Super 14 without the AB's, beat England and won the world cup.Good on them!

Daniel Carter and Richie McCaw, the two best rugby players in world rugby during the last two years, went into the quarter finals against France with injuries that prevented them from lasting the game out. There were other AB's with injuries. Henry wanted and maintained he had two players in every position. There was no back up open side flanker to McCaw,only utility flanker Masoe; and Nick Evans followed Dan Carter to the stands with an injury too!

There are people who want Henry retained as coach. He is a very good coach, but maintained everything he had done was to win the RWC. He was a failure and should fall on his sword.The All Blacks have to have a new coach for the next world cup at home in New Zealand in 2011.The last time they won was at home at the inaugural world cup, where they were light years ahead of the opposition, including beaten finalists, France.

Four more years. congratulations to South Africa and England, special mention to Argentina, and Le Bleus!

The Writers Lounge

The shortsighted Hutt City Council killed off harness racing at Hutt Park Raceway and Wellington...

The shortsighted Hutt City Council killed off harness racing at Hutt Park Raceway and Wellington.

The Mayor of Lower Hutt City, David Ogden, and the Hutt City Council continually seek uses for the old Hutt Park raceway; in fact we have probably had a number of administrations seeking to utilise this valuable piece of land down at Seaview.

Of course if previous administrations hadn't run the old Wellington Harness Racing Club into the ground rather than investing city money into the complex, and failing to maintain the existing buildings on site, there wouldn't be a problem and there wouldn't be an issue, would there?

I won't pretend that I know all the ins and outs about the old raceway, but I do know that the WHRC accused the Hutt City Council of financially ruining the club by reclassifying their status from a sports club to a profit making business, and as a consequence their rates quadrupled and their enterprise was no longer feasible.

Everybody knew that the halcyon days of the club which saw the world champion pacer, Cardigan Bay,the world's first harness racing millionaire, racing at the Park in the 1960's were long gone; in fact horse racing in general, including the galloping code at Trentham, was no longer supported by the public as in earlier years. But things have their cycles - horse racing is on the up and up now, fans are returning, young people have became interested, and sponsors are putting more and more money into the racing game. Harness racing in Auckland and Christchurch is booming - and Wellington has been squeezed right out!

And the Wellington area doesn't have a harness racing track anymore and the WHRC hasn't raced on grass at Trentham for a number of seasons. Everybody misses out because of a shortsighted Hutt City Council. The complex is wasted and nobody really wants to be based there - perhaps because they don't trust an amateurish council.