NZ U85KG Tour to Sri Lanka May 2025 – “It’s hard to come across anyone who doesn’t think it’s a great idea”

rugbyasia247 Posted On May 2, 2025

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Mike Hester, who is New Zealand Rugby’s Head of Rugby Participation, explains how the NZ U85KG Tour to Sri Lanka in May 2025 came about, what would be seen as a positive outcome, as well as possible opportunities that could arise from the two-match tour in May in Sri Lanka in May 2025.

Feature Photo Credit – NZR

You can read the first part as we heard from Mike Hester explaining what weight-restricted U85kg rugby is & why it’s important for the NZ Club Scene.

Tour Origins and Itinerary

The NZ U85kg team arrived in Sri Lanka this week, but not before receiving their silver ferns pins at a ceremony which was attended by two-time Rugby World Cup winning All Black Kevin Mealamu, who talked to the touring team and management about the privileges of wearing the black jersey. Sir Graham Henry and the New Zealand Barbarians Rugby Club representatives, as well as the families, were in attendance.

In between the two matches taking place on Sunday, May 4, at the historic Nittawela Rugby Stadium, the NZ team will return to Colombo for a few practice sessions at Longdon Place (called “the home of Sri Lankan rugby” in their domestic media). The NZ side faces the Sri Lanka Tuskers in the second match on Saturday, May 10, at the Racecourse Stadium under floodlights.

Mid-week, Sir Graham Henry is due to be involved in a fireside chat on 7th May in Colombo. Hester explains that Henry (affectionately known as Ted) had been involved in several discussions to help set up the NZ U85s tour to Sri Lanka.

“Ted is obviously very well connected across the world. I wasn’t fully aware of all the intricacies of those discussions. But what emerged was, some initial interest from Sri Lanka, in terms of hosting a national under 85 team, and we didn’t have one formed at the time, we have several national teams but we didn’t have a national under 85 team and it hadn’t been on our radar in the short term, maybe in the medium to long term”, Mike Hester told us.

He explained that NZ Rugby and Sri Lanka Rugby reached agreements on the obligations of both hosting and visiting nations.

“From there, it sort of grew arms and legs, we formed a national team, we had our board approve the awarding of the silver fern to that team, which is not something that happens easily. And then we launched into the campaign planning, which I led on behalf of NZR to get the team ready and head to Sri Lanka this week.”

Hester confirmed that there will be some open training sessions for fans in Sri Lanka to attend and added, “The last report we got was that 83 schools were coming to one of them. So I’m not sure the players are quite ready for that. We’ve had to go to the lengths of having signing cards prepared for them so they’ve got something to give away. So that will be a new experience for many of them. We’ve had to reinforce how big rugby is in Sri Lanka, and so they need to be ready for that. I think they’re pretty fizzed to use a term they would use around the opportunity.”

The tour was announced at the end of 2024, and Hester agreed that the campaign had not followed the standard process. “It has probably not been how it normally flows in that we announced the team without having a tour. Then we were able to announce that we had a tour, but we couldn’t say the country. So it’s been a teaser-type kind of release of information.

Now that they’re off, we’re starting to see the power of social media in terms of players telling their stories, clubs are telling their stories. We’ve seen some lovely pieces of players talking about how proud they are to go and represent New Zealand and wear the black jersey. It’s all starting to get real for them.”

The New Zealand Under-85kg squad trained with the Botany Downs Secondary College First XV in Auckland before departing New Zealand.

Photo Credit – NZR

Laws for NZ U85s Tour of Sri Lanka 2025

Mike Hester explained that for the two-match series in Sri Lanka, both sides had agreed on one law variation to keep the matches competitive.

In New Zealand, the U85s largely play the same law set as everybody else, but he added, “Some of them play a restricted scrum push, just because front rows are not something that they have a lot of experience in. In some cases, not a lot of them are very experienced, being able to double down as front row as well as going and playing in 85s. But some competitions will restrict it to a 1.5 metre push.”

We have that in play in all of our secondary school rugby, and we also have that in play in several other adult grades as well, just to maybe shift the focus away from front row dominance to maybe get the ball out and let’s get the ball in the air.”

However, for the NZ U85s squad assembled in Sri Lanka, Hester explains, “We just asked for a small constraint around the front row, just for the purposes of safety. And so the front row can’t individually exceed 105 kilos, which will still put them the guys 20 kilos over the front row that players that we’re bringing.

But a lot of the NZ players selected do play in non-weight-restricted rugby, and guys that are on tour have got a lot of pedigree. A number of them have come up through age-grade rugby, so technically are very confident and competent, and have successfully scrummed against bigger players before.

Photo Credit – NZR – NZ U85KG Tour to Sri Lanka May 2025

The team is full of pedigree in terms of players that have been through age-grade systems in our professional setup, but for various reasons didn’t kick on. The team consists of something like eight or nine captains, so there’s a lot of rugby IQ on the paddock.”

The New Zealand squad features players from 13 leading clubs across New Zealand playing the weight-restricted rugby, and a dozen players featured in the 2024 NZ National Club Cup Final, representing Christchurch’s High School Old Boys (seven players) and Auckland’s Pakuranga (five players).

Some of the U85kg tour players mentioned by NZR are Jarred Percival, who plays in the Heartland XV, as well as former Dutch international Tyler Koning, and ex-England U18 prop Tom Rowland.

The NZ team Head Coach is Ngatai Walker, who is the skills coach with Manawatu and has worked with Hurricanes Poua, Taranaki Development, and New Zealand Secondary Schools teams.

He confirmed that Sri Lanka was more than happy to accommodate, and otherwise, the World Rugby global law trials that are in place around the world at the moment will be used for the two fixtures.

What Would Make This a Successful Tour?

Photo Credit- SLR -Sri Lanka Tuskers to face NZ U85kg team 2025

The novelty of the tour is one consideration, but its a big moment for Sri Lanka and for NZ U85s rugby and the hosts will make the most of the games to prepare for the upcoming Asia Rugby Men’s Championship 2025 in which they play the UAE, South Korea, and Hong Kong China – the winner of the tournament earn a direct spot at Rugby World Cup 2027.

For New Zealand, Hester elaborated, “I think a close competitive tour would be a good outcome. We don’t want it to be one-sided, one way or the other, whether it’s a win or a loss, but nice and tight.

We’d like to showcase what 85s rugby looks like and how it has got a degree of versatility in terms of its ability to play open weight teams who may not initially be in the top sort of 20-30 in the world, but certainly are established and have their own ambitions and what a New Zealand rugby team can provide in terms of credible opposition there,” added Hester.

He also remarked that due to how far New Zealand is from the rest of the world, it is costly for them to send national teams, but acknowledged the popularity of the NZ and All Back brand in the region.

“We do know that a number of our teams are well supported in the Asian region, but it’s very challenging for us to send these teams and to achieve a good outcome for both parties. The All Blacks and the All Black XV, the Māori All Blacks, will certainly be dominant in a lot of the region, so it’s probably not viable for them to go. That means there is a missed opportunity for those regions to engage with the teams in black.”

I’m also the campaign manager, or have been up until recently, for the Heartland XV in New Zealand, which is our amateur representative team, that could be in the future another good example to come into Asia and provide some credible opposition. Time will tell whether or not there might be some interest in that.

But if this is of value to countries and we can make it work in terms of the ability to get teams there and have them hosted, then certainly there’s a real openness to doing that, particularly if it helps grow the game in another part of the region or another part of the world where rugby is trying to get a foothold, but just needs a little bit of support and a little bit of contact with perhaps tier one nations.”

Hester added, “It’s hard to come across anyone who doesn’t think it’s a great idea to give these players their opportunity and to see them shine. And because it links straight back to clubs in NZ, it’s been really great to be able to show the connection from NZR down back into clubs, which is sort of what it looked like pre-Super Rugby days with those connections.

Those connections have shifted as professionalism has kicked in, but that club pride is coming through in seeing their players in a black jersey.”

Photo Credit- SLR – The NZR U85kg team arrived in Sri Lanka this week

Where to Watch NZ U85kg Tour of Sri Lanka 2025

From a media side, Hester confirmed that World Rugby is interested in the tour and will be sharing more on their social media platforms, while the games are due to be broadcast in Sri Lanka via local partner Dialog, and fans in NZ and globally can see the games on NZR platform NZ Plus (which is free to download).

For fans wishing to attend the fixtures, Sri Lanka Rugby said that the first match in Nittawela is all free of charge, but the grandstand will be for the invitees and sponsors. The second match at the Race Course Grounds has tickets for sale.