New Zealand All Blacks will be playing a historical test match in New Plymouth. The match will be played on Wednesday September 3 at Yarrow Stadium – the first time an All Blacks test has been played in New Plymouth. The match will kick off at 7.35pm with the Wednesday date to avoid a clash with Air New Zealand Cup matches.
The reason for the match being played in the middle of the Try Nations is that the All Blacks want an extra test as there is a four-week break between their Tri-Nations game against South Africa in Cape Town (Saturday 17 August) and their last game of the tournament against Australia in Brisbane on Saturday 13 September.
The game in Australia will be the decider of the try nations with the winner taking all. After Australia’s record breaking loss against the Spring Bocks my bet is it is going to be an all out game. Especially with Australia trying to save face and Robbie Deans putting his mark against New Zealand.
This is the first time the All Blacks are to hit New Plymouth. But we have shown in the past that we can host big matches, including most recently the British & Irish Lions match against Taranaki in 2005 and the New Zealand Maori v England match in 2003.
The biggest crowd to ever attend a game of rugby in our province was on July 17, 1965 where 37,100 people turned up to support their local Taranaki team, who at the time were the holders of the Ranfurly Shield. But they went down to South Africa 11-3. The game was held, of course, at New Plymouth’s Rugby Park. The ground was redeveloped during 2001-2002 and was renamed Yarrow Stadium, following significant support from the late Noel Yarrow CBE JP and his family.
The Taranaki province also has strong links to the All Blacks with 70 players from the province going on to represent New Zealand, including current squad member Andrew Hore.
Many of the New Plymouth Businesses are getting in behind this great event with a Province wide black out! Shop windows are being painted black, The Taranaki Daily News has Black around it and Taranaki Harcourts have run a black out blueprint publication with a large auction campaign launched, with blue turning into black. The community is buzzing at the moment. Driving through town today was a rather nightmare. The streets were clogged with cars and people are out and about walking all over. And its only to get worse towards Wednesday.
The best part is weather has really turned out a good show as well with probably our best couple of days in several months. The great thing is the warm fine weather is here to stay until the match is over. Maybe spring is here.
I was down watching the team at the Bull Ring have a quick familiarise with the grounds and to meet some of the locals. It was awesome to see how many people turned up in support. The entire bull ring was chocker of people out to see the Team and give their support.
Well I wish to welcome Manu Samoa to New Plymouth. I hope they enjoy their time here in Taranaki and lets hope for a good game of rugby on Wednesday Night.
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits
3 thoughts on “All Blacks vs Manu Samoa – New Plymouth, Wednesday 3/9/08”
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go manu samoa
🙂 go all blacks.
All Blacks won. 101 – 12.
Not a bad score.
Must say Manu Samoa played a good game. They got through to the try line twice, something the world champs South Africa couldn’t do once the match before.