Sports correspondent & historian with Sideline Sid

Whether it is following the All Black rollercoaster, joining the Steamers’ crowd at the Tauranga Domain last Saturday, being caught in the Baywide finals traffic-jam in Te Puke or standing on the sideline of junior rugby - Aotearoa is joined together by rugby union football.

Underpinning professional rugby are the 520 clubs that stretch from the Far North to the deep south.

The clubs are the lifeblood of the great game with numerous examples of multiple generations of family members joining and moving through the ranks of grassroots rugby.

Volunteers keep alive the tradition of providing a meal after games, sweeping out changing sheds, providing crisp playing uniforms each week and the 101 tasks that keep local rugby clubs alive.

The Judea Rugby Club, nestled close to the Waikareao Estuary, recently closed the latest chapter of one member’s 50 years involvement with the club that wears the Royal Blue and White with absolute pride.

Gary Lonergan was brought up on a farm in the Waikato and started playing rugby at school as a fledgling pupil.

The short story of his arrival at Judea Rugby Club, - moving to Tauranga at 11, then Wellington when he left school where he played for Poneke and Marist St Pat’s, marriage, followed by a shift back to Tauranga in 1974.

Working at the Fertiliser Works that overlooks the harbour bridge, Jimmy Kohu who played for Judea, said “come and play for Huria bro”.

So began 50 years of membership of the fiercely proud club that calls Maharaia Winiata Park home.

Five decades ago, the Judea senior team trained at the Tauranga Domain, before starting to develop their present home.

Lonergan was there in the thick of the action, when Judea played their first game at home against Tokoroa Pirates in a pre-season encounter in the autumn of 1977.

A short break across the ditch playing for the Moorabbin Rugby Club in Melbourne, during the early 1980s, then saw Gary return home to again pull on the blue and white strip for the club he loves with a rare passion.

Player/coach of the Judea Reserves in 1990, was a move to give back to his club he had joined 16 years previously. He experienced a rare opportunity that few players get of playing alongside his son David.

The rock of any sports club, is those that volunteer to serve on their clubs management team.

Gary Lonergan put up his hand to be one of the Judea delegates to the then Tauranga/Te Puke Sub-Union in 1992, a position he still holds today.

His coaching talent with the Judea senior side, was recognised at the end of the 1995 rugby season, when he was awarded the prestigious local Sub-Union Coach of the Year award.

Three years later Lonergan began a long period where he wore a multitude of different hats; as Judea president, club captain, reserve grade coach, sub-union delegate and volunteer groundsman.

If that wasn’t enough, he answered a call to duty to become a rugby referee with twety 20 years of service.

Gary has been recognised by his peers, with membership for life of the Judea Rugby Club and the Western Bay of Plenty Rugby Sub-Union, along with a BOPRU service to rugby award.

When Judea Rugby history is recalled well into the future, the name of Gary Lonergan will stand proudly alongside the names of such as the Heke, Tata, Tawa, Woller, Seeling, Tukaokao and other families that have made Judea Rugby Club, a by-word of rugby club loyalty.