New Zealand Rugby’s Mike Hester Explains What Weight Restricted U85kg Rugby Is & Why It’s Important for the NZ Club Scene – Does It Have Room To Grow in Asia?

We heard from Mike Hester, who is New Zealand Rugby’s Head of Rugby Participation, to discover more about the unique weight-restriction rugby played in New Zealand on the eve of the first international tour for their U85KG (also called 85s) men’s side of Sri Lanka.

All Black RWC-winning coach Sir Graham Henry has been driving the format of the game in New Zealand and has even touted a potential World Cup for the format if it spreads to other regions. 

So, how popular is the grade in New Zealand and where did it start?

Photo Credit – Auckland Rugby and NZ Rugby

What is Weight Restricted U85kg Rugby, And Why Has It Grown in New Zealand

Sitting at home in New Zealand, Mike Hester explained to us first of all what weight restriction rugby is, which has been played in the rugby-obsessed country for more than 30 years. It’s been a key rugby inclusion format and used for young players to transition out of Colts or Under 19s and Under 21s, and since the introduction of the National knockout competition, the grade has re-gained momentum and is an important cog in the New Zealand rugby club scene.

“We use weight restrictions a lot in junior and teenage rugby and have done for a long time, recognising that we’re quite a culturally diverse country from European, Asian, Maori and Pacifica, which all bring sort of different physical attributes to the game. If you throw in the physical maturation, that throws in a whole lot of complexity if you’re trying to keep kids in the same age bands and ensure that they have a good experience playing rugby as they learn. For about 30 years, we’ve had a weight-restricted competition playing in the adult space,” Hester said.

In terms of its roots, the NZR Head of Participation explained that weight restriction rugby started mainly in universities in Wellington and was initially called ‘80-80s’ – 80 kilogram men playing for 80 minutes. “The popularity grew as a lot of those students who played it back then dispersed to other parts of the country, and then grades moved. Auckland established one, then Waikato, and in the North Harbour.”

By 2025, Hester says the format has expanded to be played in 26 provincial unions, and five of them have longstanding established weight-restricted grades played in adult settings and rugby clubs. 

“It is a well-loved, well-followed, well-supported grade because it kept a whole lot of young guys in the game. Particularly once they transitioned out of Colts or Under 19s, Under 21s – if they hadn’t physically developed to the extent they wanted to play Premier Rugby or Premier Reserves, then 85s is a good option,” he told us.

Of the U85kg rugby history and value to the club scene in New Zealand, Hester added, “There have been big connections, big cultures and following, and some really infamous names. They use naming conventions like the Squids, the Lizards, the Razzlers, and the Cattle Dogs. In many clubs, they’re the backbone because the players are often young professionals, tradies, lawyers, accountants and so on. They play over 100 games for their clubs, their kids play for the club that they are from, and they form part of the club’s committee.

To be perfectly transparent and fair about this, New Zealand Rugby didn’t have a lot to do with any of that at the start – that just organically happened in our communities.”

NZ National Club Cup U85kg Rugby

Hester said that NZR looked at the declining rates in participation of rugby in 2018-2019 and identified that there was something they could do to reinvigorate the 85s grade.

“From that grew this initiative of developing a sort of FA Cup-style national competition for clubs. And it started pretty modestly. We only had 19 clubs in the first year because we were in the COVID period and things were pretty tight. But today we’re up to around 50 clubs participating.”

He said that the goals were twofold:

1. Reinvigorate the grade in existing provincial unions and “give it some more eminence with them being able to compete for a national title.”
2. Try and grow the format in other provincial unions where it didn’t exist. The U85s offer clubs flexibility as they do not need to commit to a whole season. “They play for as long as you’re in it, and once you’re knocked out, you’re knocked out.”

As a result, Hester said there was really good support from the community and an uptick in participation. “The first year they played a final at Eden Park as a curtain raiser for an NPC game. So for a lot of those players, to play on Eden Park was special, and it was broadcast on Sky.”

He added that it’s the only national title that can be competed for by New Zealand rugby clubs, as all of the national titles are provincial and union-based.

“Provincial unions compete for national honours, whereas clubs only compete for local honours. This is the only exception where it’s a New Zealand rugby competition for clubs. So we’ve seen some amazing stories and they’ve played twice now as curtain raisers to the All Blacks matches.”

The U85s will do so again this year when the All Blacks face Australia at Eden Park. “That will be really special for those players, and there will be some monumental battles along the way. It is always good rugby.”

NZ National Club Cup winners 

• 2024: Pakuranga Black Panthers
• 2023: High School Old Boys Light Bears
• 2022: Southern Bush Pigs
• 2021: Southern Bush Pigs
• 2020: Eden Lizards

How Big Is U85s Rugby In New Zealand In 2025?

Mike Hester clarified, “We now have about 13 provincial unions that will have teams participating. Some of them have even gone to the lengths of starting to set up their own grades, whether they’re pure 85s grades or hybrids where they’re sort of under 21s and Under 85s. So it keeps it balanced, and what we’ve seen is some good innovation across our communities in terms of trying to use weight-restricted rugby to keep more adults in the game.”

Hester said the number of players in New Zealand changes every year, but estimated that between 1500 – 2000 players are playing in the weight grade across the country. He also commented that there are also teenage grades, and that number is a lot bigger.

As an example, he explained that Auckland Rugby has about 14 schools that enter teams with nearly 500 players alone playing in a first team 15s under 85 weight restricted category.

Is There Global Appeal for U85kg Rugby?

Photo Credit- NZ Rugby – NZ Men U85kg Team – Sri Lanka Tour May 2025

One of the leading figureheads who has been promoting the format of the game and was instrumental in the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka taking place is Sir Graham Henry, who coached the All Blacks to the Rugby World Cup 2011 victory.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to have Sir Graham Henry as an ambassador for this competition right from the outset. He’s been a big supporter of 85s, and his club was always heavily involved. He’s been a real champion for us along the way, and he’s really good at creating headlines when we need to. 

He’s always felt that the next iteration of this is moving to a rugby World Cup, which is obviously a very big step, particularly when we’re the only nation in the world that really plays it. Australia is starting to, and we have been helping them, and they’ve got some 85s going now in Victoria – So that’s looking promising.”

With the two-match tour to Sri Lanka breaking ground, as it will earn the NZ players their silver fern and be recognised as the first U85s cap (We will bring you much more in our second part of the interview), can we expect to see the format grow in Asia?

Hester explained, “There’s been a lot of interest out of Southeast Asia around the opportunity for some sort of kind of tournament or invitational series. It was through Ted’s (Graham Henry) connections that the connection to Sri Lanka grew.”

Before we got talking about the Sri Lanka tour, we asked if the danger was that there would be too many formats of the game.

Mike Hester thought about it and said, “There is always a risk of having too many products, I guess, to choose from. And it’s always a sort of horses for courses approach. You might need some skilled sports administrators to help narrow that down based on where communities are at, they might be chasing a pinnacle 15 premier type competition, whereas something more organic, lower level, less intense, maybe actually what’s going to help grow the game. 

So in a lot of these cases, it’s always about what participants value and what is sustainable, which helps you then build upon that. So we’re fortunate we have the longstanding rugby history here, and communities are pretty well informed about what works best for them. So normalising and legitimising different ways to play doesn’t necessarily mean they get uptake. But if you’ve got good case studies, people could see the value in it.

And what has the positive outcome been for them? Hester pointed out, “What we’ve seen is people dusting off their boots to come back and play in some of these competitions, which has been really encouraging.”

NZ U85kg teams at Eden Park 2019

Can the Format Be Applied to The Women’s Game?

Currently, the 85s only applies to the men’s game in New Zealand, but Hester said that New Zealand Rugby is looking at it for the women’s game too. For clarity, this does not fall under his remit, but he has previously been involved in promoting the women’s game too.

“Having a form of weight-restricted rugby is seen as being a potential option to grow the game, because, similar to the men, they do have varying degrees of interest and appetite in playing different forms. 

Obviously, with it being a critical mass sport and a sport that needs a lot of numbers, you’ve got to be careful about fragmenting your playing base too much. And that’s what a lot of small rugby systems will always be challenged with: how not to fragment them. 

But certainly they’ve got some thinking (that they have been playing with for a number of years), in how we might do it in a way that girls and women would value, but also is influenced by how they want it to be delivered to them. So, how we do it for the men may not necessarily be how girls and women want it done for them.”

Stay tuned for the second part of the interview with a focus on the Sri Lanka tour. Both games will be streamed in Sri Lanka via Dialog, and available in NZ and internationally via NZR+.

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