CAMBRIDGE NEWS | 1
THURSDAY JULY 13, 2023
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JULY 13, 2023
Ahead of Hautapu’s 11th appearance in a Waikato senior men’s club rugby final Mary Anne Gill caught up with two players already hard at work.
Hot and Sharp
By day Hautapu midfielder Jason Thomasen is a farrier. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
Jason Thomasen and Nic Jeffcoat typify amateur club rugby at its finest. During the week they’re out and about before the sun comes up working as a farrier and a butcher while twice a week after work, they’re at Hautapu rugby training in Cambridge. And their reward? “The smiles on the faces of the people who have supported our club for years,” says Thomasen, 27. He and 22-year-old Jeffcoat are apprentices – Thomasen into his fourth and final year as a farrier working around the Cambridge district and Jeffcoat into his seventh month of a butcher’s apprenticeship at New World in Te Rapa. Their names will almost certainly be on the team sheet as Hautapu seeks its 11th Waikato premier club title when they take on Hamilton Marist at Memorial Park in Cambridge at 2.45pm on Saturday. Hautapu beat Hamilton Old Boys 33-20 in one semifinal while Marist defeated the other Waipā club, Te Awamutu Sports, 43-19 in the other. Thomasen, a club centurion nicknamed JT, plays in midfield. It is his job to get the ball out to the side’s try scoring machines, wingers Quentin Hill and Waisake Salabieau. He played his part well in the semi with both men scoring two tries apiece. Thomasen says he is disappointed the team isn’t playing Te Awamutu. “I actually thought the young talent Te Awamutu has out there, that we would see them in the final.” But the experienced Marist team, with players like former St Peter’s School, Waikato, Brumbies and Kubota Spears first five Wharenui Hawera, are going to be hard to beat. Last time the two clubs met was three weeks ago when Marist won 33-31 in Hamilton in heavy conditions. “If we can get a dry track, play expansive rugby and set our wingers alight, it should be a good game.” Jeffcoat plays at hooker and caught the eye of All Blacks coach Ian Foster three weeks ago when he was Hautapu hooker Nic Jeffcoat is an apprentice butcher in Hamilton. Continued on page 2 Photo: Richard Jeffcoat.
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