Shared: the Wellington schoolgirls final ends 27-27

Not every final needs a winner to be a good final.

St Mary's College and Taita College drew the College Sport Wellington Schoolgirls Premier 1 final 27-27 at Porirua Park, and the championship is shared. As reported by ClubRugby.nz, St Mary's had been in front by 27-10 early in the second half. Taita hauled it back, and levelled with a try in the grandstand corner with roughly five minutes to play. Nobody scored again.

You can imagine both sets of players sitting on that grass afterwards, not quite sure how to feel.

Why the draw is a bigger story than it looks

St Mary's have owned this competition. Taita ending up level with them is not a one-off, though, and here is the detail that explains it: back on 24 June, Taita beat St Mary's 25-24, coming from behind to do it. That was reported as St Mary's first competition loss since 2022.

So across a season, these two split it almost exactly. One-point win to Taita in June, a drawn final in August. That is about as even as two teams get.

For Taita it means a share of the championship, and they are described as the first Hutt Valley school since Naenae College in 2012 and 2013 to hold it. That is a long gap for a rugby-strong part of the country, and worth a moment.

What happens next

The two schools' seasons now diverge in an unusual way. St Mary's advance to the Hurricanes Rex Kerr Cup final, where they meet Manukura on Wednesday 26 August. Taita cannot enter it, because they play as an amalgamated team with NZPAA, and the competition rules do not allow it.

That is a hard-luck footnote to a season where they beat the champions and then drew the final.

Manukura, for their part, arrive in ominous form. They beat Hamilton Girls' High School 47-19 on 7 August and Christchurch Girls' High School 33-17 in late July, and they are the defending national champions. The winner of the Rex Kerr Cup goes through to the National Girls' First XV Championship, the Hine Pounamu Trophy, in Palmerston North from 3 to 6 September.

The wider picture

It was a full night of finals in Wellington. In Division 2, Wellington Girls' College beat the St Mary's College second XV 67-45, which is a lot of rugby in eighty minutes. Aotea College beat Sacred Heart College 44-31 in the third and fourth place playoff.

Girls' school rugby in this country tends to get written up in a paragraph, if at all. A drawn premier final, a comeback from 17 points down, and a first title in over a decade for a Hutt Valley school deserves rather more than that.

Well played, both.