The Challenge. Can the Lions lift the Shield?

“It’s our time,” says Lions cap­tain Ma’a Nonu. Wel­ling­ton have not held the shield in 23 years and Nonu said the sig­ni­fic­ance would not be lost on the Lions. It is (spe­cial to me). It does­n’t come around too often. Last time we won it some of us wer­en’t even born. It’s now or nev­er […]

lions in the house

army Ori­gin­ally uploaded by dubh. Town is fully swinging this even­ing for the 2nd test between the Lions and the All Blacks. So much so that even some of the more sub­urb­an ori­ent­ated of the Wel­ling­ton­ist col­lect­ive found ourselves in Cour­tenay Place this after­noon, sampling the atmo­sphere. And what atmo­sphere it was: a good natured […]

Where to watch the All Blacks

If you did­n’t fly down to Christ­ch­urch for the first test, don’t have tick­ets to the Wel­ling­ton game (Sat­urday 2nd July) or can­’t be doing with all those Auck­landers for the final test (Sat­urday 9th July) then how about these options. Cour­tenay Place, “Party Zone” Cour­tenay Place will be closed to traffic and trans­formed into […]

The early Friday test build-up

We’re nearly through the Lions tour with just a few more days to go and back to nor­mal­ity for us all. The camper vans are pil­ing up from the South, the bars are hanging Welsh/Irish/English and even Scot­tish flags and the events coordin­at­ors are pan­ick­ing with the final details. We’re even bump­ing into Lions fans […]

Rugby fans in town

It’s come to our notice that some bars (Vespa and Jet Bar to date) have barred punters wear­ing rugby jer­seys. We’d like to take this oppor­tun­ity to both warn fans, par­tic­u­larly out-of-town­ers, AND to express how much we think this sucks. When the Barmy Army and the rest of the fol­low­ers hit Wel­ling­ton we are […]

Barmy Army enthusiasts – a survival guide

Here at Wel­ling­ton­ist Towers there are two camps regard­ing the Brit­ish & Lions rugby tour that’s hap­pen­ing as we write. One school of thought is that it’s a waste of money, time and energy that would be far bet­ter spent on Kiwi music; the oth­er is that this is what life is all about. Even […]

Hurricanes down amongst the one-eye’d

If you’re a rugby fan you’ll know that the Hur­ricanes are already through to a semi-final to be played at either Christ­ch­urch or Sydney depend­ing upon how the week­end pans out. A win over the Cru­saders this week­end would have a huge psy­cho­lo­gic­al advant­age at this semi-final To ensure some bal­ance to the unbiased cheer­ing […]

Rugby Registration Day for Kids

Just a quick note for any­one with under 13yo kids who might want to play rugby this year – regis­tra­tions for Wel­ling­ton Juni­or Rugby is this Sat­urday (Sat 26th). Juni­or Rugby is non-con­­tact, non-tackle, and is graded to take weight and age into account. There’s more info on the game on the WRFU web­site, includ­ing […]