Hi Onka Family,
This is the President's update for June.
We’ve completed the first half of the 2026 season and are now on the slide into finals in August. To date we’ve had some great rugby and also some awesome events at the club, with more exciting things to come.
Our juniors continue to look good, with great numbers, good training attendance and some great results. Our U12s sit undefeated at the top of the ladder, U14s, U16 and U18s sit in the top 4 looking good for finals places.
Our Women’s team won the mid-year inaugural Challenge Cup with a great performance against long term rivals Southern Suburbs. The Women’s comp this year was split into two to allow teams with less that the full 15 players to be competitive and play in the first half of the season, culminating in the Challenge Cup. The second half of the season is the normal 15-a-side premiership and our Women’s team is off to a strong start with wins against Burnside and Old Collegians/Brighton.
Our A grade continue their fight for finals, sitting just one game out of the top four. The Premier Reserves and Third Grades have had some battles against injuries and player numbers but have been playing some great rugby, with the Reserves picking up a good win over Barossa on the weekend.
We have sent in our Expression of Interest for hosting finals again this year and expect RUSA to make a formal announcement on this very soon.
Another big focus of this year has been to improve our club finances and translate this into improvements for the club. We’ve had several big events recently: Miss Onka, Music Bingo and Quiz Night as well as the Origin viewing nights. The June long weekend was also a huge one for us as we opened the canteen, bar and clubrooms for the South Australian Netball Country Netball Championships and made over $25,000 in sales as well as receiving a big thank-you from Netball South Australia. A huge thanks to all the volunteers who worked that weekend - this was a great result for the club.
Our first major upgrade will be a significant redevelopment of the club gym – purchasing of new equipment and improving the locking and access. We’ve been working hard with our suppliers as well as key stakeholders to ensure that this will improve our club’s access to strength and conditioning equipment as well as rehabilitation. This should be coming very soon!
We’ve also completed the new Honour Boards in the club-room, which I’m sure most of you have already seen, and in the next few days we should have the new lifting door for the equipment shed, which will make accessing the training equipment much easier and safer, as well as removing the crowding around that area when opening the doors.
Our new player polos, generously provided by Mal Clarke, have now been distributed to all players and we now have a new selection of merchandise available including gym towels, scarves, umbrellas and draw-string bags. See the bar or Ollie to purchase.
This month will also see the updated constitution and development plan going out to the members for comment and consideration. This allows everyone to have a say on the direction of the club and keeps things transparent.
We also have created a fundraising campaign through the Australian Sports Foundation. This is called the Friends of Onkaparinga RUFC and has a website location here: https://asf.org.au/campaigns/onkaparinga-rugby-union-football-club/friends-of-onkaparinga-rufc-foundation?modalOpen=false
While normal donations to the club are not tax-deductable, any donations made through this foundation can be claimed as tax deductions and will be issues a formal receipt that can be used for tax purposes. This is a good way to support the club and also help save some money at tax time.
As always, if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions please message me or talk to me at the club.