TAURANGA UNDER-15 RUGBY BUS ROCKS UP TO MCLEAN PARK FOUR HOURS LATE — GPS BLAMED A FERRY

A Tauranga under-15 rugby side arrived at Napier South's McLean Park four hours after kickoff on Saturday, after the team bus's GPS routed them via a Cook Strait ferry timetable.

The Coaster, driven by assistant coach Dwayne Heketa, was meant to peel off at Wairoa. Instead it sat in the Picton ferry queue at 6.47am, three hundred kilometres south of where it needed to be. Fifteen teenagers ate the last of the muesli bars. One cried quietly into a scrum cap.

"Bloody satnav told me to wait for the Aratere," Heketa told The Daily Yarn from a layby outside Waipawa. "The Aratere's not even running. I rang one of the mums and she told me to get fucked. Fair enough really."

Napier South club president Maureen Tuiloma was on the touchline at 11.30am with a thermos and a grudge. "Four hours. Four bloody hours. My grandson warmed up three times. He's got a hammy now. Tell that munter of a coach the kids deserve better than a Picton detour."

A Bay of Plenty Rugby spokesperson said the trip had been planned "to a high standard" and the GPS unit was "under review". Asked if the boys would be compensated, they said the under-15s would receive "a learning" and "possibly a sausage roll".

The match was played as a 20-minute exhibition in light drizzle. Tauranga lost 38-nil. The Marewa fourths did the same trip in 1974 without a satnav and got there by lunchtime.