{"id":81439,"date":"2025-08-20T03:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/81439\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T03:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:12:07","slug":"hawkes-bay-mourns-rugby-stalwart-and-community-leader-tom-mulligan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/81439\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawke\u2019s Bay mourns rugby stalwart and community leader Tom Mulligan"},"content":{"rendered":"

He and wife Pikihoro Mulligan (nee \u014ctene) raised five children, and he developed a deep association with the area and the nearby Tukituki River, and thus an interest in protecting its environment.<\/p>\n

That interest, developed in fishing the waters and being aware of the resources, was furthered as marae chair, and then chair and deputy chair of Hastings-area iwi constituent authority Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga, spanning 2002-2011.<\/p>\n

Mulligan also served as an appointed member of the Hawke\u2019s Bay District Health Board<\/a> and has served prominently in other fields, such as M\u0101ori tourism.<\/p>\n

He was particularly prominent in rugby, provincially and nationally.<\/p>\n

Initially a Clive rugby club delegate to the Hawke\u2019s Bay Rugby Football Union, Mulligan served as a member of the union\u2019s management committee from 1973 to 1977 and again in 1982-1990, and managed the Magpies in two terms in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n

He was union chairman from 1991 to 1996, president in 1997-1999 and made a life member in 1998.<\/p>\n

At national level, his service spanned the administrative challenges of the end of the amateur era, and the start of the professional era.<\/p>\n

Mulligan was elected as the M\u0101ori Advisory Board\u2019s elected representative on the then New Zealand Rugby Football Union council in 1995 and, amid restructuring, became a director of the first corporate-era New Zealand Rugby Union board, from 1996 to 2002.<\/p>\n

It was an era which saw the All Blacks\u2019 first test match in Hawke\u2019s Bay<\/a> (and the first under floodlights in New Zealand), against Manu Samoa at McLean Park, Napier, in 1996.<\/p>\n

He is remembered in the presentation of the Tom Mulligan Cup, for the Hawke\u2019s Bay Division 2 winners, and his service to rugby will be commemorated at the Magpies\u2019 NPC match against Canterbury at McLean Park on Friday.<\/p>\n

Wider recognition came in the 2009 New Year Honours <\/a>when Mulligan became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n

Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu Iwi formally paid tribute when about 80 leaders were called on to the marae on Tuesday morning, and about 10 of them spoke.<\/p>\n

It was a reflection of how widely he was known, according to Bayden Barber, the iwi chairman since 2022, who recalled first working with Mulligan on iwi matters when Mulligan was chairman of the taiwhenua and sharing his knowledge of governance to \u201ca young fella\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a stalwart among the M\u0101ori community, stood on the paepae at Matahiwi for many years; he had a lot to offer and gave of his time generously and widely,\u201d Barber said.<\/p>\n

While of Ng\u0101ti Porou, Mulligan married into Kahungunu via the \u014ctene wh\u0101nau of Matahiwi and Ruah\u0101pia, and Barber said: \u201cWe\u2019re glad to have claimed him as one of our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawke\u2019s Bay Rugby Union chairman Brendan Mahony said he hadn\u2019t been involved in the days of Mulligan\u2019s administrative years, but was well aware of his contribution and reputation and saw him at annual meetings and other events and used his \u201cwise counsel\u201d on many occasions.<\/p>\n

His wife died on March 30, 2015.<\/p>\n

Mulligan is survived by children Sonia, Beryl, Take and Andrew, and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n

His final service at Matahiwi tomorrow (Thursday) will start at midday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He and wife Pikihoro Mulligan (nee \u014ctene) raised five children, and he developed a deep association with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[617,64,63,9826,5214,61718,9492,34404,61720,61715,61717,760,85,61716,7772,792,61719],"class_list":["post-81439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-and","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bay","tag-community","tag-eruera","tag-hawkes","tag-leader","tag-mnzm","tag-mourns","tag-mulligan","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-stalwart","tag-thomas","tag-tom","tag-whanaupani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}