Tasman Rugby Union

In 2013 Tasman won the ITM (now Mitre 10) Championship Cup. The "Mako", as the Union's team is known, was an amalgamation of the Nelson Bays and Marlborough Rugby Unions, thereby becoming New Zealand's newest provincial union. The Nelson Bays Rugby Sub-Union, founded in 1968 and whose representative team is known as "The Griffins", is in itself an amalgamation of the Nelson and Golden Bays Rugby Unions founded in 1885 (becoming the nation's sixth provincial union ) and 1920 respectively. The Marlborough Rugby Sub-Union, founded in 1888 and known as the "Red Devils", has a proud rugby heritage including holding the storied Ranfurly Shield for six defenses in 1973. Nelson is The Home of Rugby in New Zealand , being where the first ever competitive rugby match took place in May 1870 at The Botanics between a Nelson College side and Nelson Football Club. As the newest provincial union, and one of the least resourced, we are determined to prove ourselves as worthy of our place in the national provincial championship. We are a Union moving forward and, now embarking on our second decade, aspire to be a Top 4 national provincial Union, by any criteria . [For a review of the Union's first nine years, scroll down below]