What a season. The 2025 Auckland Samoa rugby year ran the full distance, from the opening rounds through to the last whistle of the sevens, and it gave the community everything: upsets, drama, silverware, and weekend after weekend of village rugby at Aorere Park.
The fifteens season opened with a long round robin across the villages, with Marist Old Boys setting the pace and B/Y Vaiala close behind. By the time the round-robin rounds were done, the field had sorted itself for a finals series split across three grades: Cup, Plate and Bowl.
The finals were where the season caught fire. Sale'imoa upset B/Y Vaiala in the quarter-finals, edged Vaimoso in the semis, and then produced the performance of the year to beat the unbeaten Marist Old Boys in the Cup Final, crowned 2025 champions. B/Y Vaiala took the Plate and Leulumoega-Tuai the Bowl, so the silverware was shared across the villages.
A week later the union switched to sevens for the AS7s in Mangere, where Marist Samoa took the Cup, Sale'imoa the Plate and Leulumoega-Tuai the Bowl, run alongside the Le Jungle Markets for a final community day out.
Through all of it, the constant was the people: the villages, the aiga, the volunteers and the officials who made every weekend happen. Malo to everyone who was part of 2025. Tautua mo Sāmoa.
Tautua mo Sāmoa