Author(s): Lindsay Knight

NZ Sports & Athletics | Secondhand

For nearl 100 years the Ranfurly Shield has been the most famous and coveted prize in all New Zealand sport. It has achieved a status beyond rugby. It has become a symbol for intense provincial pride and undoubtedly has been the chief means by which many New Zealanders have developed their passion for the game. Shield rugby has produced many epic and heroic deeds, wins achieved in the dying minutes which have become embedded in New Zealand folklore. It has also aroused a special kind of fever among communities in the many areas in which the shield has been held for lengthy periods; unions like Auckland, Otago and Canterbury and some of the smaller ones like Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, Southland, Northland, Waikato, Taranaki, Manawatu, Marlborough and South Canterbury. Accompanying the shield, too, have been many episodes of controversy and what have been some downright shabby misdeeds which have produced some of the worst instances of parochialism. Harbdack