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Riccarton Knights club legend Shane Tamatea’s roles as stalwart player and president overlapped, making for a demanding transition into the latter position three years ago.
But with the boots belatedly collecting dust, the 300-game Knights icon has settled into the presidency and feeling more comfortable in his position as the club’s off-field leader – as well as a custodian of the game in Canterbury.
“It’s definitely been a challenge, definitely a lot of learnings – and I’m still learning,” Tamatea says.
“I was still playing [when I became president], so I probably got chucked into the job a bit sooner than [expected]. I never really envisioned myself as the president of the club, but I guess being the person that I am, having been at the club since I was 10, it was probably a natural progression.
“It’s definitely been tougher than I thought, there’s a lot of things behind the scenes that go on that you probably don’t see as players, just the day-to-day running of the club, understanding what makes the club run financially and everything in the background.
“Our club in general, I think we’re in a really good place at the moment – we’ve got good numbers in our kids grades – nine teams – then there’s our junior grades, our premiers, Division One and [Presidents].
“We’re just starting to pick more numbers up now, which is good, and the same with Papanui. The relationship with Papanui as our premier reserves [affiliate] is coming along nicely, it started off a bit scratchy numbers-wise, but we’re starting to build that up now and it’s starting to look good.”
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Striving to recapture of the glory days of the club’s only two Canterbury Rugby League grand final victories – in 2002 and 2004, both of which a tyro Tamatea featured in – Riccarton has already made some impressive statements in a super-tight 2025 CRL Whitehead Plumbing & Gas Men’s Premiership.
The Knights have already produced two wins over defending champs Hornby Panthers, 16-14 at Leslie Park in Round 3 (earning a brief Thacker Shield reign) and 28-24 in front of the Crosbie Park faithful in the last round before the King’s Birthday bye weekend.
Meanwhile, Papanui Tigers – who signed an MoU with the Knights to be their Canterbury Cup affiliate in 2025 – head into this weekend on a two-match winning streak as the clubs’ player-sharing arrangement bears fruit.
“It is a tight [premiership] competition and I think anybody can beat anybody on their day, the way it’s looking at the moment,” Tamatea muses.
“If you’re not willing to turn up week in, week out, you’re probably going to get beat.
“So that makes it interesting for the comp, no one’s a real standout at the moment and everyone’s been beaten. It’s a really exciting time for the premier grade.”
But in grassroots clubland, it all starts with the game’s youngest participants – and Tamatea paid tribute to the administrators and volunteers at the Knights responsible for fostering their juniors.
“As the president, I’m not so much on the junior side of it.
“Annette Pau’u does a great job with the juniors, [as does] Jasmine Taipana – they really take control of the junior grades and I’m just there to support in the background with whatever they need.
“But those guys, credit to them, have done an amazing job with our junior section and keeping them going. And there’s some really good people within our junior ranks, in terms of coaches and support people and parents. So we’re quite lucky in that regard with the people we have in our club.”
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As a young club president learning on the fly, Tamatea revealed he regular reaches out for guidance– and that the fraternal nature of the Canterbury Rugby League community has come to the fore while seeking out that counsel.
“I’ve definitely tapped a few people on the shoulder and asked for advice – that’s people from other clubs as well, and they’re more than willing to pass on their advice and expertise as well, which has been quite humbling really,” he praises.
“As a player, in the early days, you pretty much just stuck to your club and didn’t really associate with the other teams as much – they were your enemies on the field. But I think on the field and off the field these days, the league’s a tight -knit group and family.
“Although we’re all there for our clubs and we want what’s best for our clubs, we’re all here for the betterment of the game. And I think that shows with all the people that are in those positions now. I’m just passionate about rugby league in general.”
While on-field rivals are working together for the collective good of the game, Tamatea believes the cooperative spirit also now extends between the club’s and the local game’s administration – which traditionally hasn’t always been the case.
“Having dealt with people that work for CRL over the years, I’ve always thought they’ve been hard done by in the some of the comments that they get from the outside.
“But the people in Canterbury Rugby League right now, they’re true rugby league people – not that they haven’t been in the past – and they’re just driving that positive message that a lot of good things are happening with CRL and some really good work going in behind the scenes, the initiatives that they are bringing forward to the clubs.
“I think the clubs see that hard work happening and they’re supporting it, which maybe they might not have so much in the past.”
Tamatea’s passion for, and commitment to, the Riccarton club needs no embellishment.
And when asked makes the famously community-minded Knights such a special club, he delivers an enthusiastic and heartfelt response containing common threads with all clubs under the Canterbury Rugby League umbrella.
“It’s the people. When you join a club, I think you join a family … you see each other year in, year out.
“And I guess with our club, because we are quite a tight -knit, small club, we’re all really close and there’s just this bond at Riccarton that you can’t always explain it, but it’s just there.
“The people that have gone before me, I’m there for them – like the late Jimmy Barclay, Marie Condon – they’re the ones I’m doing this for. I want to see this club keep thriving.”
Tamatea has spearheaded several history- and nostalgia-driven initiatives in recent years, honouring those who dug the well for Riccarton to flourish in the modern era.
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“Last year we had our inaugural Old Boys Day, which was about trying to reconnect with our past. Riccarton as a club, it’s got a rich history. We’re coming up to a hundred years in 2027.
“My job has been in the last couple of years to really try and reconnect to that history – bringing back the old ‘V’ jersey that I remember wearing when I was a kid, that’s synonymous with Riccarton and I’ve had a few comments from past players saying it’s cool to see that back.
“I had a pretty cool phone call a couple weeks back from our past president Ray Anderson.
“He was a bit worried, he’d heard a rumour that we’d lost Crosbie Park as our home ground – it wasn’t true, it was because our premiers were training at Middleton through the pre -season because softball was using the grounds – but I put him straight, and he said, ‘when I was president, I signed a hundred-year lease’.
“So it was cool to be able to tell him that that wasn’t happening and it was cool to hear his story, too. He actually came down to his first game in about 30 years [a few Saturdays ago].
“That’s what that club means to me, bringing back that history those guys created 98 years ago.”
