Eagles embrace history ahead of long-awaited grand final
Eastern Eagles’ appearance in Sunday’s CRL Whitehead Plumbing and Gas Men’s Premiership grand final is the culmination of an outstanding campaign, where pre-season goal-setting has come to fruition through dedication and consistent improvement.
But the end of the club’s 45-year wait to feature in a decider is an overarching storyline ahead of CRL Snap Fitness Grand Final Day that is impossible to overlook – and the Eagles are aiming to harness that history ahead of their showdown with Riccarton Knights.
The Eagles line up in the grand final for the first time since Eastern Suburbs’ iconic 1979-81 premiership threepeat.
“You can’t ignore it, everybody’s talking about it,” Eagles head coach Jarrod Race admits.
“We just have to embrace it. We’re going to have a jersey presentation with a lot of the old boys that played in that ’81 grand final and it’ll be good to try and get their thoughts on what it means to them and use that as motivation to hopefully bring home the Pat Smith [Trophy].
“This whole week has been about [how special it is].
“Everyone we’ve spoken to … firstly we didn’t even realise that it had been 45 years. When people start talking about it, it just shows how excited they are to see us get there.”
Finding the balance between using their grab at a drought-breaking triumph as motivation and avoiding it becoming a distraction will be crucial, however.
Second-placed Eastern enter the grand final on a seven-match unbeaten streak. Last tasting defeat when they were overrun by Linwood in the second half at Wainoni Park in Round 6, the Eagles made a huge statement in a 30-all final-round draw at Linwood Park that foiled the Keas’ bid for a perfect 12-0 regular season.
Any disappointment at letting a handy second-half lead slip in that match was washed away a week later in the major semi at the same venue, when the Eagles stormed to a 30-0 scoreline before withstanding another Keas fightback to prevail 32-22.
“The mood’s pretty good, we’ve got a good vibe going on at training at the moment,” first-year head coach Race says.
“I’m pretty happy with where the boys are at. We obviously would have been keen to get a game in last weekend, just to keep the motion rolling – but we’ll work with what we’ve got.
“We’ve just been building game after game this season.
“The boys are improving week in, week out. They set themselves some pretty big goals. Obviously it would have been nice to go and beat Linwood in that last round, but hey, we’ll take the draw. It wasn’t the end of the world for us.
“But it also set the tone for that next game. We knew we had to be just that wee bit better.”
While most predicted another eastside derby on CRL Snap Fitness Grand Final Day, the Knights’ preliminary final upset of the Keas has set up an equally fascinating decider.
The Eagles carved out a 30-16 win over the Knights at Wainoni Park on Anzac Day, while they rallied from an 18-6 halftime deficit to win 30-24 at Crosbie Park in Round 9.
Riccarton is attempting to capture the Pat Smith Trophy for the first time since 2004.
“We have to play somebody in that final, so it doesn’t matter who it was,” Race asserts.
“Riccarton are a very good side. I suppose everyone sort of thought Linwood was going to get there, but I guess the better teams on the day won.
“They’re tough. They’ve got some really good players across their team, so we’ll just have to go at them as hard as we can and hopefully we’ll come away with a win.”
The Knights also carry the lessons of their loss to the Keas in last year’s decider into Sunday’s assignment – whereas the Eagles are comparatively short on players with CRL grand final experience.
“We’ve got (former Hornby stalwart) Devaun (Thompson), I think this is going to be his fifth – but he’s at a different club, too, so it’s different for him.
“A lot of the boys, obviously it’s their first time, but they’re excited. With our whole community behind us, the vibe, the excitement around everybody we know, it’s hard to keep the boys relaxed and chilled.
“But maybe that’s just something we have to work with.”
Eastern Eagles are no strangers to Ngā Puna Wai as a club, however. Their Premier Reserves side won titles in 2024-25 and will be there again aiming to make it three straight in the CRL Sidekick Chartered Accountants Canterbury Cup Conference League grand final against Linwood Keas.
“Having them in the last couple [of Canterbury Cup grand finals] meant that we had to step up our premiers game a bit – we couldn’t just live off what they were doing,” Race reveals.
“So when we got the boys together, we obviously pushed pretty hard to match them with what they were doing. This week’s been really good having them, their experiences over the last couple of years, we can sort of work with how they prepared.”
Loose forward Regan Marriott and halfback Klayton Waikato will co-captain the Eagles on Sunday.
Regular skipper Taniela Leka is unavailable due to a long-booked family holiday – evoking memories of Hornby’s James Baxendale missing the 2017 grand final for the same reason.
It also denies the Eagles the services of a key leader and playmaker…not to mention an opportunity for Taniela to square off against older brother Kyle Leka and nephew Joel Leka, who are both members of the Knights’ squad.
“We’ve been trying to navigate that and see how it would look, but firstly we just had to make sure we got to a grand final first before we dealt with that,” Race says of the scheduling snafu.
“We’ll do our best to make him proud, that’s for sure.
“All the boys are looking forward to it now – we just can’t wait to rip in and get the job done.”
Photo credit: Abraham Atherton Photography
