Rugby season kicks off Rural Conversations

At a meeting earlier this week, Golden Bay farmers, growers, and landowners learnt how changes to land and water management policy could affect their activities.

The Rural Conversation forum, held in Collingwood Memorial Hall on Monday, brought together the Bay’s rural sector, with relevant personnel from Tasman District Council (TDC) and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) for a series of short presentations, followed by one-on-one discussions.

Farmers could be excused for feeling a little bewildered by the raft of new rules being introduced to regulate everything from winter grazing and stock exclusion to fertiliser regimes and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Councils are also grappling with the constantly evolving legislative and regulatory landscape, especially concerning freshwater management, ecosystem protection, and climate change mitigation, not to mention a major revamp of the Resource Management Act (RMA).

The 2023 rugby season kicked off last Saturday with both of Golden Bay’s Senior B teams in action on home turf.

Results were mixed. Collingwood registered an emphatic 44-0 victory over Murchison while Tākaka succumbed 8-26 to a very strong Stoke side.

In Collingwood’s opening fixture, the home team was up against the first senior rugby team put out by Murchison for some years, and the latter’s lack of experience quickly showed.

In front of a large partisan crowd, the visitors looked nervous, particularly in defence, and only three minutes had passed when they conceded a penalty for an infringement almost directly under the posts. The Black and Gold’s number 10 Brad Goulsbro gratefully accepted the gift and put the first three points on the board. Just over 10 minutes later, following a period of intense pressure by the home side, Goulsbro added a further three points after the referee awarded another penalty.

It wasn’t all one-way traffic; Murchison mounted several forays forward with their streaky number 15 looking particularly dangerous, but their attacks invariably broke down. In defence they looked vulnerable and the loss of possession in a scrum high up the field led to a try by Brett McKay which was successfully converted to give the hosts a 13-0 lead. but when a stray pass was intercepted by Barham it led to a try by Ryan McKay who grounded the ball between the posts making for a simple conversion. And the Back and Gold weren’t done yet; with five minutes left on the clock, their forwards heaved the ball over the line to take the final score to 44-0.

With the Collingwood ground clock displaying 38 minutes the home skipper Ryan McKay scored a stunning try following his darting run. A successful conversion moved the score to 20-0 where it stayed until half time.

After the break, Collingwood piled on the pressure, forcing the visitors into some desperate defending – even taking the black and gold jersey off Will Barham’s back during a maul, much to the amusement of the crowd. But it wasn’t turning out to be a happy afternoon for Murchison who conceded again when Gareth Scott scored a try following a scrum, and Goulsbro converted stretching the margin to 27 points.

Speaking after the match Collingwood coach Graeme Miller was clearly happy with both the result and the performance. “We worked hard on our pre-season structures and fitness and it showed. I’m pleased how the whole team worked hard and got the job done.”

While Collingwood were totting up the points against Murchison, Tākaka were engaged in a fierce battle with a very well drilled Stoke side at the Rec Park.

Straight from the kick-off, the visitors put Tākaka under pressure which the home side opted to relieve predominantly by kicking the ball forward. Tākaka rallied and five minutes into the game got close to the opposition try line but lost possession – something that was repeated by both sides on numerous...

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The meeting, an opportunity for the exchange of information between regulator and regulated, began with a short introduction by chair of Rural Support Trust Richard Kempthorne. He outlined the purpose of the presentations, which he said were “to provide an overview of Government’s recent and upcoming regulations, explain the role of TDC, provide TDC contacts, and where to get information”.

TDC team leader – natural resources consents, Leif Piggott, talked about freshwater legislation, pointing out the uncertainty over new National Environmental Standards for freshwater quality and changes to the RMA and the Tasman Resource Management Plan.

One thing was clear, though: all farms over 20ha will require a Freshwater Farm Plan (FWFP), a document designed to help farmers identify on-farm actions to improve local waterways, to be in place by the end of next year according to Mirka Langford, TDC team leader – soils and land use.

Acknowledging that writing a FWFP is a “huge undertaking”, Mirka explained that TDC’s Kat Bunting has been assigned as a facilitator for the two Golden Bay catchments – Tākaka and Aorere – to “make the process easier”.

TDC principal planner Erin Hawke focused in on TDC’s freshwater policy... Continued on page 3