{"id":644643,"date":"2026-10-29T08:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T08:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644643\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T08:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T08:08:10","slug":"west-coast-rugby-league-community-mourns-layne-green-after-shock-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644643\/","title":{"rendered":"West Coast rugby league community mourns Layne Green after shock death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHe was always happy and good, and he always wanted to have a laugh. He loved his family and friends around him.\u201d <\/p>\n

Layne represented West Coast across all age groups during his schoolboy years, played for South Island representative sides and was named in three Junior Kiwis teams. <\/p>\n

He moved to Christchurch in the early 2000s to play league before relocating to Griffith, New South Wales, in 2006, with his brother, Cole. <\/p>\n

He met his future wife, Mel, during a year in Nowra in 2008, where he played first-grade league, before moving back to the West Coast to work in a mine. <\/p>\n

In 2010, he returned to Nowra, where he had remained ever since, Royce said. <\/p>\n

Despite spending many years across the ditch, he never lost his connection to the West Coast, twice fundraising to bring his son\u2019s under-15 Australian team, the Berry Magpies, to tour the South Island. <\/p>\n

Part of his motivation was getting his boys to experience playing at Wingham Park in Greymouth, the field he loved running out on the most, Royce said. <\/p>\n

\"LayneLayne Green playing for Berry Shoalhaven Heads Magpies RLFC in Australia. Photo \/ Berry Shoalhaven Heads Magpies RLFC<\/p>\n

League was in Layne\u2019s blood; his father, Bernard (Hurgi) Green, played several matches for the Kiwis in the early 1980s. He died in 2006, aged 47, after <\/a>an accident in the Roa coal mine at Blackball, near Greymouth.<\/p>\n

Two of Layne\u2019s sons are signed with NRL academy sides, Brodee (17) with the Bulldogs and Cooper (14) with the Sharks. <\/p>\n

During his time in Australia, he worked in different coal mines before starting his own company, which contracted miners for work and had around 90 employees.<\/p>\n

He travelled frequently on business but made sure to call his family every day and did so on the night he died. <\/p>\n

Layne\u2019s proudest achievements in league were coaching his four children and bringing his sons to New Zealand to play at Wingham Park, Royce said. <\/p>\n

Tributes to Layne have been made by many on social media, including West Coast Rugby League, which said his legacy in the region would remain. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a man who achieved so much but never lost sight of his beginnings, his people or the place he called home.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Berry Shoalhaven Heads Magpies club said Layne would leave a big hole in the local football community and their thoughts were with his family and friends. <\/p>\n

Layne is survived by his wife, Mel; children Brodee, Cooper, Sammie and Pearl; mother Rose; siblings Tyrell, Cole, Royce, Cherish and Karina; and best mates Terry, Garick and Amy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe was always happy and good, and he always wanted to have a laugh. He loved his family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,85,1558,11586,1259,634,6179,9058,14154,2518,685,293109,14731,9066,34535,111,43,139,69,15120,6327,13744,41656,686,12025,3807,80],"class_list":["post-644643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-australia","tag-been","tag-coast","tag-community","tag-death","tag-died","tag-figure","tag-give","tag-green","tag-last","tag-layne","tag-league","tag-loved","tag-mourns","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-remembered","tag-rugby","tag-shock","tag-unexpectedly","tag-week","tag-wellknown","tag-west","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644643","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=644643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}