Auckland Rugby League had the opportunity to sit down with fullback Oliver Tuimavave of the Pt Chevalier Pirates and discuss the season from his perspective of how he performed individually and how Pt Chevalier did as a team. We also got to know about how much Ollie has love for his club being a Pt Chevalier Junior.

“Pt Chevalier was my junior club. It was the first club I ever played for, and I grew up down the street from the clubrooms. I did play a couple of years for Mt Albert, but I ended up going back home to Pt Chev in 2016 and have been there ever since.”

Since coming home to the Pt Chevalier Pirates Ollie enjoyed success in 2018 as the Pt Chevalier Pirates defeated the Glenora Bears 6-0 in the SAS Fox Memorial Premiership Final. This was the first Fox Memorial win Ollie was involved with and he had to wait four years to get the opportunity to win his second. The 2022 was the first full season of Auckland Rugby League for the Men’s grades since 2019. There can be many highs and lows for an individual or as a team when playing this game, luckily for Ollie and Pt Chevalier there were more highs.

“One of the highlights for me was that I pulled up 50 games for the club this year, that was kind of something special for me. I wasn’t really expecting to bring up any milestone games this year and to obviously cap it off with the Fox, it was great.”

“I think in terms of lows, honestly, I still don’t think we hit our full potential this year, but we achieved our main goal coming away with the win in the final which I’m super grateful for.”

To live up to that potential a lot of preparation must be done on and off the field, especially on a big game week, such as the Fox Memorial Grand Final. Prior to the game Ollie looked relaxed and felt confident about the game.

“I was just trying to treat it like any other game build up. You know in the back of your mind the importance of the game but for the most part nothing really changed for me. I just wanted to get out there and give us our best shot.”

The opening minutes of the game was very physical, and it looked like Glenora had the upper hand.

“Yeah, to be honest, I think we started slow. Glenora were marching through us in that opening 10-15 minutes of the game and I think we were lucky to get through that period without conceding any points.”

In the 20^th minute of the final, Harley Maynard scored an all-time classic Grand Final try off the back of some individual brilliance from Ollie which broke open the game in favour of Pt Chevalier.

“We were at a point in the game where we were stuck in the grind for the first twenty minutes, you know, nothing was really going anywhere. I don’t know, I just tried to step to the outside then back in and was lucky enough to poke my head through the gap.”

The game swung in favour of the Pt Chevalier Pirates who crossed for a second try through Francis Leger soon after. Throughout the game the momentum swung between both teams as Glenora stayed in the fight, which made for a physically draining game for the players and great viewing for all the fans. In the last ten minutes of the game, Glenora were building pressure with a chance to take the lead.

“Watching back, I think we had them on the backfoot in the second half, but we couldn’t get that finishing touch on our sets, which set up for a tough last ten minutes. But yeah, it was a huge effort from our boys in the front line, our resilience on defence is what got us through.”

That resilience in the last ten minutes got Pt Chevalier over the line to win the Fox Memorial Shield and to cap off being undefeated since the middle of the 2020 season is an incredible achievement, which very few clubs have managed to achieve.

“Honestly it was a big thing for us, we have a lot of boys in the senior leadership group that are getting older and looking to move on next year. We wanted to send everyone out in the right way.”

“Obviously the past two seasons had no results, and a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes. Not just from us, but from everyone in the coaching staff, management, and the club itself. So, it’s good to finally repay them back for their efforts these past few seasons by staying undefeated and winning the Fox Memorial Shield.”

“A lot of hard work gets put in on and off the field to make games run smoothly so people on and off the field can enjoy their time at the footy. Referees are one of those groups that are important to our game and are a part of our rugby league whanau and the way of our rugby league community.”

“I think that the match officials did another great job throughout the whole campaign. They're taking the time out of their day to come and referee our games; we can't play the game without them. On behalf of myself and all the Point Chevalier Pirates we are really appreciative of what referees do for us and what they do to keep our game alive.”

Article added: Tuesday 16 August 2022