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The North Harbour Rugby Union was formed in 1985 and during this time has developed a reputation for playing quality rugby football.
The union's NPC team, known simply as North Harbour finished 6th in the competition in 2004 having won 4, lost 4 and drawing 1.
Area
North Harbour Rugby encompasses a geographical area that takes situated in North Shore City and Rodney district in 12 rugby clubs from Mahurangi in the north through to the North Shore club based in Devonport, North Shore City, the southern-most area of the union.
Representative rugby
Representative teams from North Harbour take part in both national and regional competitions. The North Harbour Senior side plays in the Air New Zealand NPC
As North Harbour is one of three provinial involved in the Auckland Blues Rugby Super 12 franchise which takes part in the annual Southern Hemisphere Rugby Super 12 competition, their players are eligible to be picked by the Blues without relying on player drafting, thus, North Harbour players can be seen in Blues jerseys regularly also.
History
North Harbour has enjoyed a great deal of success on the rugby field having produced All Blacks and other New Zealand Representative players, and also winning the 3rd divsion title in their first year 1985, then promotion to Division 1
, and making the final series of the nations NPC competition on several occasions during the 90's, hosting the 1995 final at a capacity-crowdOnewa Domain against Auckland.
North Harbour players play in the Rugby Super 12 competition as part of the Auckland Blues partnership with the neighbouring Northland and Auckland unions.
With the development of the North Harbour Stadium at Albany in the late 90's, this stadium became the home base of Harbour rugby. This futuristic multipurpose stadium can contain over 25,000 spectators.
Club and High-school Rugby
The club rugby season runs annually from March through to the beginning of August.
There are also 16 secondary schools fielding close to 100 teams within the North Harbour Region. Due to the ratio of secondary schools to rugby clubs there is strong relationship between the two.
Current players
The following is a list of players signed to play for the North Harbour NPC team in 2005 who have played for the All Blacks:
- Luke McAlister
- Rua Tipoki
- Tony Woodcock
Former players
These are players who have played for North Harbour in the past and have gone on to play international rugby and accomplish other feats as listed:
External Links
Official North Harbour Rugby Site (http://www.harbourrugby.co.nz)
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