1999 Super Twelve Rugby

 1999 Rugby Super 12.

           Each season, five New Zealand teams – the Auckland Blues, the Hamilton Chiefs, the Wellington Hurricanes, the Canterbury Crusaders and the Otago Highlanders thrill huge live crowds and television audiences alike as they jostle for points and placings against each other and teams from Australia and South Africa in the world’s first totally professional, inter-provincial rugby championship.

          To mark the 1999 Super 12 Rugby season New Zealand issued this interesting set of postage stamps. The stamps were issued in five team stamp self-adhesive booklets each containing 10 stamps of two different designs and in a sheetlet of ten (gummed) stamps showing all ten designs from the booklets.

          Note that much of the text for this post was written in 2013 and added to our Rugby on New Zealand Stamps collection. Since then, more items have been found so we decided to give this issue its own page.

See our Rugby on New Zealand Stamps collection.

1995 Centenary Of Rugby League

          Rugby league had its beginnings in Huddersfield on 29 August 1895 when 22 rebellious Yorkshire and Lancashire rugby union clubs in England's industrial north held a meeting in Huddersfield and voted to quit the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) and form their own organisation (the Northern Union). Their dissatisfaction stemmed from the RFU's refusal to allow players to be compensated financially for taking time off work to play rugby. It was not long before a new brand of rugby developed. League was on its way. New rules emerged, speeding up the game and making it more open. Out went lineouts, play-the-ball restarts were introduced and, in 1906, teams were reduced from 15 to 13 players. League also became professional.
The 'All Golds'
          Rugby league in New Zealand grew out of the original rugby union All Blacks tour of Britain in 1905-6. Some of the touring New Zealanders watched the league, were impressed with the new game and became converts.
          One of these All Blacks, a fleet-footed winger named George Smith, returned home and quickly teamed up with keen young sportsman and budding entrepreneur Albert Baskerville, to form New Zealand's first rugby league side. Including many former All Blacks and dubbed the 'All Golds' because of its semi-professionalism, the team embarked on a tour of Britain in 1907-8 without having played a single game in New Zealand.
         The tour was a success. The All Golds won 19 of their 35 games including the test series against Great Britain which was won 2 - 1. On the way home the All Golds also captured two of three tests against Australia. On their return, the All Golds made up most of the two teams that squared off in what was the first league match ever held in this country. It took place in Wellington on 13 June 1908 before a crowd of around 7,000. The name All Golds has long been consigned to history but today's 'Kiwis' continue the tradition begun in the early 1900's.

2015 All Blacks Miniature Sheet

      On 31 October, at Twickenham, New Zealand won the 2015 Rugby World Cup, becoming the first team to retain their title, and the first to win the title for a third time. We were up at 5am Sunday morning to watch the game live. There were many emotions experienced during the next 80 minutes, from the excitement seeing New Zealand jump into an early lead to the shock and horror when Australia gained on us again. Finally came a realisation that the All Blacks had taken the game.

      To mark this event, New Zealand Post is issuing this special Miniature Sheet showing the celebrating All Blacks grouped for a photograph after being presented with the Webb Ellis Cup. The sheet also shows basic details such as the date, location and the two teams that played with their respective scores. What does stand out boldly is the title at the top "All Blacks World Champions 2015."

See our collect Rugby on New Zealand Stamps.

While I like the design of this sheet I do not like the fact that we see those All Blacks silver fern stamps again. Sure they have been issued enough already?

Images and Text used with permission from the NZ Post web site.
https://stamps.nzpost.co.nz/

2015 All Blacks.

There’s a certain mana and prestige that comes with being part of the All Blacks - it’s an honour reserved only for New Zealand’s very best rugby players. The ultimate symbol of the All Blacks is their iconic jersey, to which we pay tribute in this official All Blacks stamp and coin issue. Worn with pride for generations, the jersey has been some variation of a black uniform with a silver fern since 1893, and in 1905 the team became habitually referred to as the ‘All Blacks’. Although the jersey has changed many times over the years to keep up with the intense pace of our national game, the mana of the jersey continues to this day.

2014 All blacks

         Representing us in our national sport, the All Blacks are a point of pride for most New Zealanders. Show your support to the All Blacks with these special stamps re-issued to reflect the upcoming changes to domestic postage rates (effective 1 July 2014).  From NZ Post web site.
         Allan came up to visit our farm over the weekend and we sat down to discuss the direction of this blog. One of the things decided was to feature all new issues. So in light of this I have decided to show this set and link it to other rugby stamps produced by New Zealand.

 

Rugby on New Zealand Stamps

       

          As the title above says, this post is about the history of New Zealand Rugby as told by the stamps of New Zealand.

1967 Health - New Zealand Rugby.
         

          We begin our search for New Zealand Rugby Stamps with the Health Issue of 1967. When New Zealand was changing to decimal currency and so it was decided to start a new sporting theme in the Health  Stamp Series. As the New Zealand Rugby Union was celebrating their 75th Anniversary the first stamps of this new theme depicted rugby. Each design featured a boy playing rugby football with a shadow figure of an 'All Black' player in the background.

                               

1967 Rugby - 2 1/2c + 1c                           1967 Rugby - 3c + 1c