Whangarei District Council Deputy Mayor, Sharon Morgan has been elected as President of the Northland Rugby Union at the Unions AGM.  She becomes the first female President of the Union – and quite possibly the first woman president of a rugby union in New Zealand.  Sharon Morgan replaces Brent Hewitt who has ended his three year term as President.

The former NRU Board Member and current Secretary of the Northland Vikings Rugby Club was nominated by the Otamatea Sub Union and unanimously elected. 

NRU Board Director and Chairman of the NRU Council of Unions Murray Dunn congratulated Sharon on her appointment saying her business acumen and local body governance experience along with her long history in rugby will be invaluable to the Union.

Sharon has a wide experience of rugby.  In 2006 she was the first woman elected to the board of the Northland Rugby Union.  She was Secretary of the Northland Vikings Rugby Club for 13 years and her late husband, Joe Morgan, represented North Auckland an unequalled 165 times and was All Black number 733 playing 22 times including 5 tests.

Sharon said it was a great honour to be elected as President.  She is looking forward to the challenges ahead to continue the growth of Northland Rugby and is looking forward to celebrating the NRU Centenary in 2020.

Northland Rugby Union CEO, Alistair McGinn, says it’s another exciting step forward for the Union as we look to the future.  He says while the performance of the Toll Northland Taniwha in the Mitre 10 Cup wasn’t the greatest in the past two years, we have been leading the way off the field.  He points out the Northland Rugby concept of the Blue Card Concussion process has now been adopted by NZ Rugby and implemented into all the Mitre 10 Cup Unions, we’ve restructured our club competition to reinvigorate it and continued our partnership with the Ministry of Social Development and the white ribbon ‘Family Violence – It’s Not OK!’ campaign.  Along with all this, it was announced at the AGM that the Union will be recruiting a full time Women’s Rugby RDO to start as soon as possible.

Also at the AGM Brent Hewitt assumed the position of Past President and Phil Halse replaced David Fagan as Patron.