Kurangaituku Weekend 1, 2025 - 90th year

Managers & Umpires Meeting

  • There is a special meeting of team managers and umpires at 7.30pm on Thursday night at the Copthorne Hotel*, Fenton Street.  It is essential each team is represented as there may be changes to the draw which may affect your team and their start time.

  • If a delegate is unable to attend, please phone the pavilion, 07 3486578 between 6.30pm and 8.30pm to confirm your teams arrival.

Prizegiving

Prizegiving will take place at Equippers straight after the final game. Eqippers is a short walk across the car park (on the Malfroy Road side). No trophies or banners will be handed out beforehand.

The first Kurangaituku tournament was played in 1933 and grew to become the largest tournament held in NZ. The "Rotorua Borough Council" ran a Spring Carnival to promote Rotorua as a tourist centre and commissioned master carver, Pine Taiapa to carve a trophy from a solid block of wood - our magnificent Kurangaituku Trophy named for the woman in the legend "Hatupatu and the Birdwoman, Kurangaituku".

From the small beginnings of 6 representative teams playing on 2 courts at the Government Gardens, the tournament grew to 100 teams on 10 courts over 2 days at Kuirau Park, and over 2 weekends on 20 courts, and 300 teams! These days we have to host the tournament over 3 weekends to include a weekend for school aged players, but having had our courts resurfaced and numbering only 16, we sometimes have to have a limit on numbers. 

Not only do teams return year after year, but so do the umpires (The Umpires subcommittee look after all the umpires who are fed and watered upstairs). They all enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and superb organisation of the Netball Rotorua Executive.