THE HEART OF HORNBY: PANTHERS’ PEOPLE-FIRST ETHOS LAYS FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS
Boasting a 110-year history and more championships than any other club, Hornby Panthers are a cornerstone of the Canterbury Rugby League landscape.
The Panthers enjoyed a banner year in 2024, surging to glory in the CRL Whitehead Plumbing and Gas Men’s Premiership in long-serving coach Jed Lawrie’s last campaign in charge and finished with the Thacker Shield at the clubhouse, while the returning CRL Bartercard Women’s Premiership team reached the grand final.
Hornby products achieved national recognition from age-group level through to the Kiwis, and the Panthers were crowned Club of the Year at the 2024 CRL Awards.
On the eve of another huge season, club president Brent Tomlinson took the time out to have a wide-ranging chat with Canterbury Rugby League, reflecting on more than a decade in the role with his beloved Panthers.
Hornby Panthers president Brent Tomlinson
“We put together a business plan the year I started, which came into 2015, our centenary year,” Tomlinson recalls of his introduction to the presidency.
“I had 12 months with a really good roadmap from the old guys, they pretty much told you what the expectations were and how they did it and then gave you a bit of freedom to go and put your flavour on it – I’ve been very lucky in that lots of the old boys have wanted to help out.
“I’ve got a really good group around me; (wife) Jo is always there [as a sounding board] – she comes from a hospo and event management background – and that’s where we’ve taken the club, a bit more events-based.
“It just adds a bit of flavour to things, rather than week-in, week-out football. People enjoy themed events and games – more a sort of Australian take on things, the way they promote themselves and run the marketing.”
Rugby league is woven into the fabric of the Hornby community, with countless examples of players turning out for the club in the nursery grade all the way through to premiers.
Family life revolves around the club for many, providing an invaluable support network that extends beyond their teams’ 80 minutes at Leslie Park each weekend.
“That community spirit and how tied everyone at Hornby Panthers are – it’s more than just a footy team or a footy club, it really is a community organisation,” Tomlinson says with obvious pride.
“One of the club’s bylines is ‘born to be a Panther’, but I think you become a Panther.
“It’s just a very big family. Everybody seems to know everyone, extended family-wise. Most of my family have played.
“Extended family are part of other clubs so football’s always been part of it, but I grew up on Foremans Road: the Tomlinsons, the Nixons, the Newsons, the Woodgates, the Woodhams – they were the guys you went to school with, or they were up the road, or their father coached you.
“There was no other sport to play that was half as much fun, all your mates played, that’s all you did at school, the backyard and at the park – it’s a big deal in Hornby. When we had the Kiwi front-row [in 1987] with Adrian (Shelford) and Ross (Taylor) and Wayne (Wallace), those guys would come down to your trainings and hang out with the kids. I was quite lucky in my childhood, having international players come down – kick you in the pants if you’re mucking around or show you a few things.”
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There’s a clear sense of care, kinship and community duty that reaches out to anyone involved with the Panthers.
Tomlinson outlined some of the welfare-driven programmes the club has rolled out, along with the symbolic initiatives they have undertaken to strengthen those bonds.
“We signed up to an NRL pilot program in New Zealand, they wanted two clubs – one in the north, one in the south – for suicide and drug awareness. Black Dog is their depression side of things [in Australia], but State of Mind is what they called it. They flew over Preston Campbell … we had a couple of coach calls with kids that I’ve coached, and it was just very applicable. It helped me, because you realise how much you don’t know about that sort of stuff when those things happen.
“The club rebranded it as Stronger Together, that’s suicide and drug awareness. We’ve also got a program called Plan B, for what happens if your whole life revolves around football and you blow your knee to pieces or whatever. Have you got tertiary training? Have you got a trade under your belt? Literally a plan B. The old boys helped put that in place – guys who are firemen, policemen, brickies, anybody who’s been there and done that and thought, ‘shit, if [things for] this kid don’t go a hundred percent to plan, he needs a plan B’.
“We’ve had lots of placements, scaffolding, bricklayers – guys need an income while they’re being park footballers until they make it.
“ You’ve probably seen the harakeke (flax) pattern on the bottom of our juniors’ shorts, the kete (traditional baskets), that symbolises that all the different threads woven together is what makes you strong. And without having those individual threads, all pulling in the same direction, working together, then you’re just pulling yourself apart. I know it sounds a bit hokey, but it’s a big thing in our club.
“They’re stronger together and the little symbols along the way help kids understand how that works. I think we’re about one-third Polynesians, one-third Māori, and one-third ‘bitzers’ like myself – that’s pretty much where the club is divided up. You’ve got to have your touch points.”
It’s the dedication and elbow grease of many that ensures clubs like Hornby survive and thrive.
Coaches are much more than coaches, while administrators essentially have a second job for six months of the year.
“I’ve been blessed with some very good coaches,” Tomlinson says.
“I can’t speak highly enough of Jed (Lawrie) and the way he understands the bigger picture stuff. The holistic approach, that it’s no good having a great player if he or she is a mess off the field, if mum’s not happy or the kids are not happy. They are not going to be the best player or person they could be.
“(Club secretary) Sally (Nutira) working at the hospital and is Ngai Tahu, I’m quite lucky. You don’t have to educate those guys, they know exactly what you’re talking about and they lead that. It’s really nice to have people around you who can take the reins and suggest things and know that they’ve thought it out and thought it through.”
Tomlinson pondered that Hornby’s extraordinary 2024 season was arguably the best year of his tenure “other than being the (NZRL) Grassroots Club of the Year [in 2014]”.
Jo and Brent Tomlinson with the 2014 NZRL Grassroots Club of the year award
“For that [premiers] group to take the number of knockbacks that they had and little things not go right and just falling at the last hurdle [in recent years] and to just keep digging away.
“I know again, it sounds a bit hokey, but that’s really hard mentally for people to keep coming back and getting so close but not getting there. That goes down to that group, and then secondary to the people behind them driving that group. It’s a whole way of thinking about things [and] everything has to be club first.
“When you ask a question, it has to be, ‘what’s best for the club?’ And then, ‘is that best for the team?’ And then, ‘is that best for the individual?’ If you can’t get past that first question, then you probably can’t dive any further into what you’re asking. Jed and that prems group, everything they did last year, the cultural stuff, and working with the junior sides and blooding those players.”
Not only returning to the CRL Bartercard Women’s Premiership fold, but lighting up the competition with a youthful side playing a vibrant brand of football, was another major highlight of a stellar season for the club.
“We’ve had women’s teams in the past and they’ve been very successful, but they’ve not been 100 percent homegrown. Last year was the first year where, hand on heart, you could say all of those players are ours.
“There’s a few who’ve come from elsewhere, but the vast majority of them are homegrown.
“The women’s grade now, they’re younger, they are fitter, they play at pace, they play a really big running game – it’s almost like a revolution … they’re really getting some traction there.”
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Overcoming Jed Lawrie’s departure from the men’s premiers head coach role after nine seasons and eight grand finals shapes as one of Hornby’s biggest challenges of recent times.
But in paying tribute to the two-time premiership coach, Tomlinson emphasises that he has left the team and the club in the best possible shape as he hands the reins to brother and Panthers legend Corey – and that his influence is almost certain to remain.
“I don’t know that Jed’s come out and said it, but he’s a very open book. As far as what he’s looking to do and how he wants to do it and being inclusive. Some people like to be insulated and siloed and like to work in their little groups, but he gets the way we are, he gets the big picture.
“He’s almost managed his way out and left a little bit of a roadmap like the old guys did for everything else: ‘this is how I’ve done it, this is how it’s worked for us, put your own spin on it, but this is how it’s worked’.
“I played football and was coached by his father, and Pete’s a very hard man, so you can understand Jed’s background and that he’s quite well-rounded in passing on knowledge. You have to have confidence to share your knowledge and to allow people to take the reins and move over – even having someone else like Corey (Lawrie) at this stage come in and coach – you have to have confidence in your ability and that you’ve passed [your knowledge] over to a group of players who can continue to do what they do.
“There’s a lot of human stuff in there. I’ve worked, I hope, very hard to keep the people around him involved, because he’s just such a good touchpoint. I think he’s even going to – for someone who’s officially retired from coaching – coach age grade this year.”
Hornby Panthers’ 2016-24 premiers coach Jed Lawrie
While Tomlinson recalls having Hornby premier players who were current Kiwis lob up to trainings in his younger days, the modern reality is very few of their best players will don the Panthers jersey at premiership level before being snapped up by professional clubs.
Recent Kiwis debutants Fa’amanu Brown and Jordan Riki are proud Hornby products but ventured to Australia as teenagers to chase the NRL dream.
Bishop Neal appears headed for rugby league’s heights as he stars for the Warriors’ Harold Matthews Cup (under-17s) side, while Sosaia Alatini is in his third year impressing in the NSWRL junior competitions for Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs.
After shining in the Panthers’ drive to the CRL Bartercard Women’s Premiership grand final last year, Kyra-Lee Westland (Penrith) and Manisha Seebeck (Sydney Roosters) are taking their opportunity in the Tarsha Gale Cup (under-19s) in Sydney.
But Tomlinson is circumspect about losing their most talented players before than get anywhere near their peak.
“If you’ve done everything right and you’ve given them all the tools they need and turned them into a well-rounded person, that’s what you want for them,” he asserts.
“I know that [some people are] like, ‘oh no, where do your premier players come from … but that’s the whole point of the club being there. As much as it’s about football, it’s about making opportunities for well-rounded people. Football’s a whole lot more than just football, in my humble opinion.
“Getting a player so they are a good person off the field. Everything that you’re trying to do is to give those kids a chance. To do better than you. Like your folks, they only ever want you to do better than them. So if we do everything right for our kids, they should at least get seen and possibly picked up.
“And I don’t have a problem with saying that I think the best players in the world are blue-collar workers. They’ve come from working stock. I don’t know many … league players who’ve gone on to make it who’ve come from wealthy backgrounds.
“It’s like boxing. You won’t find a world-class boxer who’s grown up with everything at their fingertips. I enjoy that. I think as a code we need to promote the fact that we are blue-collar, we are working-class and this is a hard game.
“When you say that you’re a ‘leaguie’, that means something.”
To finish off an engrossing discussion, Tomlinson offered his thoughts on the broader Canterbury Rugby League picture and where the game is headed locally.
“I’ve witnessed some tough times, administration-wise and … changes that possibly didn’t need to happe. Rightly or wrongly, when the Warriors are going well and the Kiwis, the game’s on the bubble [in Canterbury]/
“We’re on the burst. We’re going well. So it’s your opportunity to get things done. There’s not a lot of money in the game, we push our administration quite hard, and we’re trying to be everything to everyone. I mean, I deal with it at club level, so I worry about it at an administration level, if we try to do too much too quickly and we could burn out the good people we’ve come across.
“Like (CRL CEO) Malcolm (Humm), that’s a pretty good pick-up there on the personnel side of things. We have to be mindful that, you know his background and his training and where he’s worked – you don’t get people like that all the time.
“There’s a lot of ambition in the game, and I think you’ve definitely got to walk before you run. And we’re just starting to find our feet, we’re just starting to get some money, some traction. The grades are all growing, juniors and seniors, with the women’s grades on the bubble.
“The premier grade looks like it’s getting back to the sort of numbers it needs to be. I think [the clubs] just need to stick to the football, and let [CRL] get on with things a little bit. I do wish we had another development officer, because if we’re going to be having kids go overseas, they need not just to be pushed, but they need to be prepared and understand the pitfalls.
“But at the same time, they’ve got to have fun. Football’s meant to be fun. We played football every day of the week, just because it was fun. And training was no different. You went to training because you got to hang out with your mates and run a wee bit and tackle a wee bit and smash each other a wee bit – but it was because it was fun.
“Everybody did it. And I think we need to remember that football is supposed to be fun, even at a premier level. If you want to know why players aren’t showing up to training, they’re either not having fun or they’ve got other commitments – and if it’s fun, you can normally find a way around commitments.”
