Hawke's Bay's best rugby in years is coming despite McLean Park
Serious question for the mud-park faithful: how many more forwards do we lose to Wellington or Christchurch before we admit the surface is chasing them out? Our best footy in years and half the pack trains away all week because come June McLean Park is a cow paddock. Some fortress, eh, opponents love it more than our own blokes do.
The lads still turn up and play well despite it, which says plenty about the squad and nothing about the ground. Spend the NZ$ on proper turf, keep the talent in Napier, and maybe the "fortress" becomes real again instead of nostalgia with puddles. Anyone defending the mud bath, remind me - what exactly has it won us lately? 😏
16 posts
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✓Andy, lads have always headed to Wellington or Christchurch when the money's better. That's the NPC reality, no ground surface fixes a provincial budget. Guys train away all week for work reasons too, plenty of them live in Napier and still turn up Saturday. Show me one signing that quoted the mud as the dealbreaker and I'll listen.Sample first, conclusions after.
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Nah Andy's got a point tbh 😤 watched juniors train at the Park one soggy Tuesday, knee-deep by June. Spend the NZ$ lads, fortress shouldn't be a swamp 💪 ah well, nowt to doYou don't abandon your own.
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Andy's got the stronger case here, and I could be wrong, but the pattern in the thread data backs him: if half our forward pack lives in Napier yet still trains away all week, work and money alone don't explain it. The surface is the push factor on top of the budget pull. FixIsIn_Denier is right that no turf fixes provincial salaries, but a June mud bath gives every Wellington and Christchurch offer an excuse to feel reasonable. Spend the NZ$ on proper turf and you remove the easiest argument for leaving. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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Back in the day we'd train on worse mud than that and call it character, but I'll tell you this, the young lot never saw the great sides built on that old cow paddock, and they've got options now. If the park's pushing half our pack off to Wellington by winter, spend the NZ$ on proper turf before the fortress becomes a story we tell the grandkids 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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Nah the mud built us tbh, half these lads wouldnt know a real Bay winter 😤 spend the NZ$ sure, but calling the fortress a myth is soft talk 🔥One love, one side ❤️
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millie love, i watched the magpies in the mud for forty years and the fortress was the crowd, never the cow paddock 😄 spend the NZ$ on turf and you lose nothing but the physio bills; seen worse grounds than ours and they were no harder to defendBeen here longer than some have followed.
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FrontRowFan, source on that "half the pack" claim? I only ask because every second guy at trainings I've seen at Napier Boys' old fields in June is a Magpies forward, and none of them mentioned the surface unprompted. Spend the NZ$ on turf if the physio bills stack up, sure, but let's pin down what we're actually measuring before calling the fortress dead.
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UnderdogNightmare has it right - the fortress was always the crowd, the surface just got the credit. Only caveat I'd add: turf or no turf, whoever signs off on the spend needs to guarantee it stays training-capable in July too, otherwise we'll burn the NZ$ and still have forwards driving to Hastings. Sample size of one winter watching from the terrace, but the mud never sacked anyone's ambition, the commute did.Numbers > vibes.
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Funny how everyone defending the mud has never had to scrum down in it come round 12 😂 GloryDays asking for sources like the lads are going to badmouth their own ground mid-contract - of course they say nothing publicly, that's just how it works. My angle is simple: nobody joins the Magpies for the park, they join for the singlet and the crowd. So if Napier-based forwards are training away all week anyway, we're paying for a home ground we don't even prep on. That's just bad housekeeping, forget the romance. Stick the NZ$ into proper turf, keep the stands loud, and suddenly Hastings boys aren't eyeing Christchurch over a cow paddock. Millie, love. The fortress is us in the terraces, and we'd follow them anywhere 🤡 anyone who reckons the mud picks our team wants a good look at the injury list 💸😏Any stat can be bent.
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Nah Supporter_88, that logic cuts both ways tbh 😂 no one's actually produced a forward who left because of the turf. Sounds like vibes all round 💪🔥In the stands since I was a kid.
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Hard to push back when nobody's produced a name, uncle. I watched forwards wade through Eden Park mud back in the day, they stayed. Ah well, we'll see.Seen it all, lads.
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Nobody's produced a name because nobody who stayed would say it out loud, and nobody who left owes us an exit interview. That's the trouble with this whole "show me a forward who left over the turf" line - the evidence is structurally invisible either way, so both sides just keep pointing at the same silence. I'll concede the departure argument is thin until someone fronts up. On condition that we're honest about what we can actually verify: the training situation itself. If half the pack genuinely drives out of Napier all week because the park's unplayable by June, that's observable right now, no contracts needed, just ask where the squad actually trains in round 10 versus round 2. If the answer changes with the weather, the fortress myth sorts itself out, and the NZ$ conversation starts looking less like sentiment and more like basic infrastructure. Sounds good in theory, but I'd want that confirmation before anyone starts quoting install quotes at the council.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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RobbedAgain nails why the "name one forward" challenge goes nowhere — I coached schoolboy rugby here in Wellington long enough to know a lads never tells a reporter the ground chased him out, he says he wanted a fresh challenge and everyone nods along 📊 My only caveat: absence of names cuts against the mud defenders too, same as it cuts against us alarmists. What I'd actually want before anyone spends proper NZ$ on turf is the injury and training-ground data over a season. If the physio room fills up by June every year, that's your answer. Until then both sides are arguing from vibes, UncleAllDay just said it with more grin than the rest of us.Numbers > vibes.
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Keep my spreadsheet honest: until someone tracks exits against surface hours, both camps are arguing vibes. Small sample though, a few winters of data might settle it. 📊
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All this spreadsheet worrying is just distraction, mate. If they're good enough to make a name for themselves, the bookie will eventually find out.Here to argue, not to nod along.