Upper Clutha are top of the Central Otago competition table after winning their first six matches this season, including the "Ranfurly Shield equivalent"of Central Otago rugby, the White Horse Cup, against Wakatipu last Saturday, and will take on Maniototo tomorrow in their jubilee match.
Captain Lachie Garrick has played all his rugby in the area and said it would be a special day for current and former players of the club.
"We get a lot of support, so it’ll be really awesome to celebrate the 125th with everyone.’’
Garrick has captained the side for four years, playing lock and flanker. He lifted the Central Otago trophy last year for the team after a six-year hiatus for the club, which last won the competition in 2018.
He hopes to do the same at the end of this season.
Maniototo would test the team’s unbeaten streak, he said.
"They have got a pretty tidy team so that will definitely test us — we will want to win it, we will want to put on a bit of a show.’’
It is said you are not a local until you have played 50 matches for the Upper Clutha Rugby Club — or at least, that’s what its players, members and stalwarts will have you thinking.
Former club president Nathan Simon said when he first arrived as a player in 2001, the club’s foundation of high-country farmers after the amalgamation of Tarras and Wānaka in 1971 took a bit of getting used to and it was not love at first sight.
Even when he arrived, there were a few tradies from Wānaka, but the Tarras contingent was made up of "real high-country farmers and a whole lot of other rural guys’’, he said.
"When you fast-forward to now, the club has about four or five farmers and the rest are tradies in town, so it really has changed in the 20-odd years.
The club was looking forward to welcoming back many old players and supporters and all will be hungry for a win against Maniototo.
