2026 Preview: Inside Papanui’s Premiership return
After last featuring in Canterbury Rugby League’s top tier in 2022, Papanui Tigers make an emotional return to the CRL Whitehead Plumbing & Gas Men’s Premiership this season.
The Tigers’ rich history stretches back more than a century. The Waimari club formed in 1922 and adopted the name Papanui in 1947, winning its first senior championship in 1957 before dominating the 1970s, taking out two grand finals in the 1990s and lifting the Pat Smith Trophy for the last time in 2015.
Days out from the Tigers’ comeback match – an opening-round clash with Eastern Eagles at Papanui Domain – head coach Ray Hubbard gave us an in-depth look behind the scenes of the proud club’s renaissance.
COUNTDOWN TO KICK-OFF
RAY HUBBARD: I guess probably where we’re at now is where the rubber meets the road and whilst we’ve certainly ticked some boxes and achieved some great things in a real short time, to be honest, it’s only been five or so months. The proof is in the pudding, but we’re under no illusions that this is a three-year rebuild and I’ve signed on for three years. So I’m just really excited to see the club flying the flag in the [Premiership] and Premier Reserve grades, and giving guys the opportunity to put on the Tigers jersey. This is what I’m looking forward to most.
FIRST STEPS OF THE REBUILD
RAY HUBBARD: If it’s peeling it right back and you talk about the club as a whole, I think obviously it starts in terms of our governance and our administration. I had the privilege of being at a club at Halswell that had some really good people in the right places and I think that sets the tone in terms of organisation and structure and people being on the right page with things. I was very fortunate to have that and the support that comes along with it. And obviously a big part of coming across to Papanui was the fact that there was some motivated people, what I sense were the right people at the right time, particularly with Kanei and Katrina Johnson involved there. I’d had conversations with the likes of Grant Bond pretty much every year that I’ve been back, but just sensing that the time was right and probably it was now or never for the club. The opportunity was right for me after being involved with Halswell for five years.
That sort of support there is really, really important when you’re trying to drive a club and certainly when you are trying to drive a club from scratch – it’s almost impossible to do on your own. So the people that we put in place was pivotal and I knew that I had the capability of building a program that would attract people. I had belief that I could help get the club to contribute to that, be a cog in the wheel if you like, and we’re super happy with that. We’ve assembled a group of players that go right across in terms of age and experience.
They’re very diverse and what I’ve found is that they’re a hearty bunch, but they probably haven’t been exposed to a lot of coaching. So these guys are learning, it’s very challenging for a young adult to take on new skills and be open-minded and have a growth mindset. I’ve been really impressed by the way that they’ve gone about it and no matter where we enter the competition and what we do from this point, I still feel that we’ve got a lot of improvement to go and a lot of development. We’ll do that through the season, of course, with skin in the game, but we’ll also do that season upon season.
STAR RECRUITS
RAY HUBBARD: I’ve been really fortunate and been able to bring across two players that I’ve worked with for five years at Halswell, Antonio Lemalu and Ken Tofilau. Arguably, they’ve been two of the top level players of the competition and certainly in my player group over the last five years; they are players that have been exceptional every season. I’ve been really lucky in this day and age to coach players of that calibre for the better parts of their career – to go year six beyond [with them] is a real privilege.
They’ve changed as young men and that’s what’s exciting. I’ll lean on them and they have an understanding of the style of play and what my expectations are. I’ll lean on them to help deliver that. It’s a high-trust model. They’ll provide me feedback that I need. They’ll give me the litmus and the feelings coming back from the player group, which is just as important. I’m not here to be bloody 100 percent right or make it a dictatorship. Having their involvement and leadership and the trust that we have is really, really important.
EXPERIENCE COUNTS
RAY HUBBARD: We also get the opportunity to coach some players that have done some amazing stuff in the club scene and even in Australia. Izic Placid, who’s been a journeyman, Papanui at heart and his experiences have taken him to Kaiapoi and Eastern and Riccarton, where he’s had different levels of success. What I like about ‘Ice’ is just the meaningfulness around the way he’s going about things at the moment. Obviously, as you get more mature, you don’t take as many things for granted.
Some of the messaging around just how important it is for him personally to come back to the club is quite powerful and certainly something that we’ll be leaning into. It’s symbolic of how most Papanui people feel, including myself, about where the club is at and where the club could go. He’ll be a leader in his own right.
Another player to pop back up after a few years away, but to lend his experience – whether it’s physically or just what’s in his brain – is Chris Bamford. We’ll manage Chris. It’s no mean feat at 42 [years old] to play the style of football that he plays. If I’m 100 percent honest, I might have been a little bit sceptical about, not his capability but his capacity to be able to do it. You just take one look at him and when he goes about things at training, he’s got all the energy, all the experience.
He’ll know all the shortcuts. You can’t buy the level of experience that he’s got. He’s going to put some strike into our attack. He’s going to make some edge defenders feel a bit nervous, no doubt. He’s had three or four years, maybe longer, out of the game. For him, there’s probably motivation for him to come back and contribute and play with a few mates and be part of a kaupapa that could provide some extra level of meaningfulness that he hasn’t experienced in his playing career. We’ll benefit from his football brain. The way he goes at training, he could probably wear a number six or seven jumper just as much as playing back-row or front-row.
It’s just the skillset he’s got and the game awareness that he has. The beautiful thing about having someone of his expertise is you don’t have to do a lot of coaching. I won’t be teaching him anything that he doesn’t know, but hopefully I can keep him motivated. I can help him manage his body through the year and he can be a strong contributor for us.
Then another notable, Christian Fetu, coming across from Hornby is another attractive outside back to have – quality class player. Again, he goes about things a little bit more quietly than others, but no doubt when we get into battle and we get into the swing of the season we’re all looking forward to seeing what he can contribute.
Then underneath that, there’s a stack of true clubmen that have probably been through some hard times and they’ll benefit from the experience that we can place around them. Hopefully we can have some joy at times in the year and they can enjoy their rugby league experience. That’s super exciting to see some of those guys in the squad.
FULL CIRCLE
RAY HUBBARD: I started playing at Papanui when I was seven years old. I was coached all the way through by the same coach right through to 18s, Alby Murphy, and we had a successful team. I think we won the competition in 14s, 16s and 18s through our time. I missed the year of 17s and played a bit of rugby at high school, prioritised first XV rugby, but I was lured back. I debuted in premiers as a 16-year-old on a mid-winter Wednesday night against Linwood. I had an indifferent debut – scored three tries and kicked four or five goals, but as good as that was I had a teammate tell me that I was throwing too many dummies to him, so he wasn’t too impressed. The other learning that I got was being introduced to Troy Sweetman, who made a fashion of running straight over top of me three or four times.
I didn’t continue playing premiers. I played several games for Canterbury Bulls [in 2000] and left in 2001 to go chase football in Australia. I don’t think I thought that I’d come back to be a Tiger, but here I am in full circle. For me personally, it comes with an element of it’s meant to be. I’m home again.
TIGERS SUPPORTERS
RAY HUBBARD: The supporters have been immense. It’s blown me away. Obviously, being away for so long … some things that have come to the forefront of my mind in my time here has been the connection to the area. I grew up in Northcote Road, I went to Bishopdale Primary School, so there are family names associated with the area that I grew up that weave in through rugby league and school and whatnot and they are still there.
They’re still embedded and ingrained in the club. To have this role, and people coming out of the woodwork and congratulating you for taking on the role, they’re excited about what they’re seeing on social media and all the positivity. To have that support coming from people that went to school as a six- and seven-year-old and they have every right to forget who you were and move on – but it’s not necessarily related to me. It’s related to the pride that they have in the club. It’s a hearty, hearty club. It’s been emphatic just the way that they’ve come out and have been so positive to what we’re doing.
The other thing about the support is people outside the club, the general feedback about how genuinely excited people are to have Papanui back in premier grade and it hasn’t been the same without us there. That goes a long way. It makes us feel appreciated and again helps us stay motivated. It’s that North Star, keeps us moving forward and sticking along. I really appreciate the support that we’ve had within our community but also the extended Canterbury Rugby League community. It’s been amazing.
THE RETURN
RAY HUBBARD: I’m sure April 18th, Round 1, the first time we’re back in the premier grade, it’s going to be a massive day. I’d say a lot of the lads in my group wouldn’t have had that big day type of rugby league feel before and they’re certainly going to have that.
That makes me really excited for those players to experience that. In my mind, yeah, coaching is about Xs and Os, but nothing can beat a rugby league experience that you get from playing the game. Whether they’re in the Premiership or Premier Reserves, if we can do things that elevate the experience, they have fun doing it and they get value out of the time that they spend around the club with me and the rest of the staff … that’s what brings us all together. That’s the most exciting thing.
If we’re patient and we continue to learn and we get recruitment right over the next couple of seasons, we develop the players that are handy to us now, we’ll work our way. Nothing’s going to be easy. We’ll learn it and we’ll have to learn about learning it. I think the support that we have and the undercurrent of belief and pride that the club’s name and reputation carries is enough to keep us motivated.
SUPPORT STAFF
RAY HUBBARD: We’ve got Mark Paku who’s come on board as Premier Reserves coach. Mark is a clubman. He’s got a young fella that will be in my premiers squad and he’s been on the journey with the club. My first encounter meeting Mark was one where he spoke from the heart and spoke of the trauma of the last four or five seasons and beyond with the club. I believe he’s pretty [early] in his coaching journey, he hasn’t had the opportunity to coach many teams, but we’re working closely together and I’m a big believer that a rising tide lifts all boats.
The time that Mark’s spending with me, hopefully I can make him a bit better of a coach, and hopefully some of the mana and heart he holds within the club and the group is rubbing off on me. Together, working among the other staff, we can all elevate ourselves to a position where we’re delivering a program that’s going to be successful long-term for the club.
It’s just the next step. You don’t want to get too carried away. It’s easy to. I’m an emotional coach and an emotional player, a lot of people that know me will say that. What we’ve been is really strategic in the way we’ve approached things and we’ve executed that all the way along in our planning. The key is just to do the same all the way along. We just don’t want to spill the marbles now, so to speak. We’ve got to continue to care for it, continue to drive it, continue to instil good values around the people that we look after. What will be, will be.
