New faces are steering the Pirate ship in 2025, and the goal is to make it go faster.

Te Puke Sports new head coach Martin Ash and his assistant, former Super Rugby player Dan Hollinshead, have been putting players through their paces since late January.

Ash is Te Puke High School’s director of sports, but was coaching at Paeroa Sports last season, so just caught the tail end of Te Puke Sports’ Baywide Rugby title-winning 2024 campaign.

“Paeroa Sports lost the Thames Valley final and after that I watched the [Baywide] semifinal and the final.

“That was my only interaction with the club, but working in Te Puke at the high school and being involved in the community and knowing how important the club is in the community, when the job came up to coach the team it was something I was really interested in.”

Pre-season

Two pre-season games against Hamilton Old Boys and Morrinsville have brought a loss and a win.

After the first game, Ash said he was pleased with the performance.

“We played a combination of our premier and development players. The final score was 34-29 to Hamilton Old Boys which doesn’t mean anything in pre-season, it was more about our prem boys getting a decent 40-odd minutes to have a crack.”

Pre-season training began in late January and included a weekend camp on Mōtītī Island.

“It was a really, really good camp. We didn’t spend a lot of time smashing the boys with fitness and bits and pieces, it was more about breaking down barriers with the boys because we’ve got a new player group there and a new coaching group as well.

“The boys don’t know me from a bar of soap, so the big concept of the camp was to get to know each other a little bit more, but also we did a lot of cultural stuff. Everyone had to share a story about who we’re playing for and what we’re playing for this year.”

Top values

The team have adopted three values for the season: to be consistent, to be accountable, and to have fun; and it’s no secret that the season-long goal is to retain the Baywide premiership.

“I wouldn’t have come on board as a coach and I’m sure the club wouldn’t have hired me as a coach if that wasn’t my goal. That’s what the boys want to do, so we are on the same page with that.”

Ash said he didn’t want to change what was working and was looking for consistency.

Te Puke Sports head coach Martin Ash. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

“My whole philosophy is to make the boat go faster. What we are doing is working really, really well, so what can I add to make things more consistent at the club?

“It’s basically just to keep your foot on the throttle at all times, which is really hard to do for players. The season is long and we’ve got to keep the boys up at every training and every game. It’s massively mental.”

Returns and losses

Most of last year’s players are returning, with the most notable loss that of last year’s captain and No 8 Joe Johnson.

“We’ve still got Grady Forbes at 8 and we’ve picked up Johnny Rush as a 7 and we’ve picked up Keiran Harris; he’s come up from Southland as our big lineout lock, so we are looking very, very good.

”Last year’s front row is still intact. To add to the excitement of returning fullback Fletcher Carpenter who made his New Zealand Sevens debut late last year, former Scotland and GB sevens player Femi Sofolarin has been added to the otherwise largely unchanged backline.

“We are looking very strong. I would say we are possibly not going to start as strongly as [we finished] last year, but we will 100% build going on to the business end of the competition.”

Te Puke’s season begins tomorrow with a trip to Rotorua to take on Whakarewarewa.

The first home game, on March 29, is against Mount Maunganui.