{"id":372819,"date":"2026-04-10T10:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/372819\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:54:10","slug":"rotorua-rugby-and-league-clubs-join-forces-after-whakarewarewa-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/372819\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotorua rugby and league clubs join forces after Whakarewarewa fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deal means the clubrooms can be used when Whakarewarewa needs a base for a gathering or when it hosts out-of-town clubs for its premier men\u2019s team<\/a> home games.<\/p>\n

Ngongotah\u0101 Chiefs president Paul Nahu<\/a> said careful planning on the games schedule meant there were no clashes between Whakarewarewa\u2019s home games and their senior teams\u2019 hosting responsibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about looking after each other. There are strong connections between the two clubs going back 50 years with different families so everyone is quite familiar to us as a club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nahu said it was the right thing for Ngongotah\u0101 Chiefs to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhaka is going through a pretty big maemae [hurt].\u201d<\/p>\n

Whakarewarewa president Marty Hatu said the club was grateful to Ngongotah\u0101 for opening its doors.<\/p>\n

\" Whakarewarewa Rugby Community Sports Club on fire on October 21 last year.<\/p>\n

Whakarewarewa\u2019s premier men\u2019s games will this season be based on field 2 at Rotorua International Stadium \u2013 the area often used for athletics. This weekend, due to Saturday\u2019s Chiefs-Moana Pasifika Super Rugby match at the stadium, Whakarewarewa games against Mt Maunganui will be at Rotorua Boys\u2019 High School. .<\/p>\n

Hatu said the club\u2019s rebuild work was in progress.<\/p>\n

\" A whakatau was held to officially mark the coming together of the Whakarewarewa Rugby Community Sports Club and Ngongotah\u0101 Chiefs Rugby League Club. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The club was faced with either going through a \u201clike-for-like\u201d rebuild with the insurance company, or getting a payout, doing it themselves and building something bigger and better, Hatu said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to grow our club in all the activities that we do. The club we had wasn\u2019t fit for purpose any more so now that the opportunity presents itself, we want to make sure we are creating a building that will be future-proofed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Whakarewarewa\u2019sWhakarewarewa\u2019s clubrooms burned to the ground last October. Photo \/ Kelly Makiha<\/p>\n

He said it had been noticeably harder coming into the rugby season without \u201chaving a base to be at\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cLadies had to shoot off to the gas station to use the bathrooms, that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Hatu said he welcomed the challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is going to test a bit of our grit but I\u2019m excited to see how we are going to pull together … Sure, we don\u2019t have a club or an income but I like the story, if you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WhakarewarewaWhakarewarewa takes out the win 29-25 against Tauranga Sports. Photo \/ Kelly Makiha<\/p>\n

In many ways, 2025 had been a dream year, with the club picking up several regional trophies – including the Baywide Premier Men\u2019s Rugby title and the Baywide Women\u2019s Championship title. <\/p>\n

\u201cComing off our big year, it\u2019s going to be hard to back that up, but I like the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly Makiha<\/a> is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The deal means the clubrooms can be used when Whakarewarewa needs a base for a gathering or when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,95,46326,2079,8223,19755,14731,111,139,69,1327,6327,213,68113],"class_list":["post-372819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-and","tag-clubs","tag-fire","tag-forces","tag-join","tag-league","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rotorua","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-whakarewarewa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}