News

Manurewa loose forward Blake Ashby will bring up his 100^th Premier game for the club when they face Bombay up the hill on Saturday.

The hard-working flanker will follow in his father Kevin’s footsteps in achieving the special milestone for a club he grew up at – the first father/son combination to have achieved the honour in club history.

Ashby made his Premier debut in 2011 and was part of the McNamara Cup winning side last year as Manurewa broke a 24-year drought to get their hands on the region’s biggest rugby prize.

Coach Jeremy Clark said the achievement has been a long time coming.

“Blake “Snake” Ashby debuted 12 years ago in 2011 and has had some injuries along the way as well as a couple of semi retirements but has shown true resilience to now finally get to the milestone,” Clark told Counties Sports Hub.

“I’ve had the luxury of coaching him the last six years. He has had a lot of quality backrowers to compete with in teams, but his true grit has worked hard to get him this far so for that I’m in awe of his toughness.

“He is underestimated by opposition teams and very deserving of this accolade.”