Source: New Zealand Police
One person has died following a single-vehicle crash in Kaitaia overnight.
Emergency services were alerted to a vehicle hitting a tree, near the intersection of North Road and Farrimond Place, about 10.30pm.
Sadly, the driver, the sole occupant, died at the scene.
Police are providing their family with support.
Enquiries into the cause of the crash are ongoing.
ENDS
Issued by the Police Media Centre
Source: Radio New Zealand
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and family celebrate his 150th Warriors outing against Canberra Raiders. Andrew Cornaga/Photosport
Erin Clark heard NZ Warriors teammate Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was leaving from his distraught wife.
The news surely didn’t come as a shock to Clark, who had watched from across the locker room, as the veteran wing fended off questions about his future at the club and his links with the rebel R360 rugby competition.
Last week, Tuivasa-Sheck finally ended the speculation with an announcement that he had signed a two-year contract with English Super League outfit Wakefield Trinity, starting next season.
The consequences of his decision hadn’t fully dawned on Clark, until he was greeted by tearful partner Elizabeth.
“She was crying, because her best mate – Roger’s wife – was leaving,” the Warriors lock admitted.
Few things can undermine team chemistry like one of its stars making plans beyond the current campaign. The Warriors saw that two years ago, when Addin Fonua-Blake was granted an early release during a listless 2023 campaign.
While the powerhouse front-rower was named Dally M Prop of the Year for his onfield form, he was also suspended for breaching club standards, when he skipped the team song and post-game address, after their Magic Round win over Penrith Panthers.
The Warriors now have at least two more imminent departures, with Tuivasa-Sheck and co-captain Mitch Barnett already signalling their intentions to leave, and others also off contract this year.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck understands he still has work to do with the Warriors. Andrew Cornaga/Photosport
Both have been at pains to avoid the appearance they have one foot out the door, but the timing of Tuivasa-Sheck’s social media reveal could not have been worse. Hours later, his team tumbled from atop the NRL table with a loss to unfancied Wests Tigers at home.
RTS himself made two costly errors that gifted the Tigers tries and momentum before halftime.
“It wasn’t a distraction,” he insisted. “I tried to sneak it in there – the biggest news was Luke Metcalf’s return.
“I’m just glad it’s out now and we can move on with the season.”
At the Warriors’ weekly media opportunity, Tuivasa-Sheck deflected any further discussion, as his team prepared to visit Cronulla Sharks this weekend.
“I don’t really have time for the details right now,” he said. “There will be a time and place to sit down and chat over my decision to go to Wakefield, but right now, there’s a lot on our plate, with a Sharks team that are flying at the moment and we’re bouncing back from a loss.”
He admitted to a sense of relief that the matter was settled.
“Not just for myself and my family, but for the club as well – I just didn’t want it hanging around.
“The announcement’s been made, the future is secured for me and my family, and now I can play my footy – and hopefully my best footy – for this club that I have a lot of love and respect for.”
After the Tigers loss, coach Andrew Webster was unaware RTS had gone public and had to be re-assured the media weren’t trying to trick him with their questions.
“We’re so proud of Roger and so happy for him,” Webster said, who spent a couple of seasons as an assistant coach at Hull Kingston Rovers earlier in his career.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Apii Nicholls accept their 2025 Warriors Player of the Year trophies. Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz / Photosport Ltd 2025
“He gets an opportunity to experience something different. To go to the north of England and play in the Super League is a great experience, something he’ll remember forever.
“We are more celebrating what we get to do this year together. Obviously, Barney’s moving on and Roger the same, so this team wants to do something special.
“We’ll focus on the now and celebrate that we’ve still got him, but really happy for him.”
Others – including Erin Clark’s better half – have slightly different emotions.
“Real sad, especially what he’s done with the club, and he’s still in his best years,” young forward Tanner Stowers-Smith lamented. “The last two years… well, he was our Player of the Year last year and, this year, he’s been killing it too.
“It’s not like the game is pushing him out – he’s still playing amazing footy.
“It’s pretty sad to see him go, but I know he’s doing it for the right reasons, and for his future and his family too.”
Clark was able to take a more pragmatic view, knowing Tuivasa-Sheck’s replacement was already secured, with the signing of former All Blacks Sevens star and now-Melbourne Storm performer Will Warbrick, fresh off a four-try showing last week.
“Someone like him will be missed around the club,” he said of RTS. “The legacy he’s left here, the type of person he is… he’s real humble and a good person to be around the club, so I think that’s the main one that’s going to be missed.
“Obviously, the player he is… he’ll probably go over to England and win Man of Steel five times by the time he finishes, so all the best to him.”
The four-time Simon Mannering Medal winner, former club captain and only Warrior to win a Dally M Medal is obviously beloved, and his departure is perhaps the motivation needed to finally deliver an NRL championship to Mt Smart.
“Him and Barney – the captain of our club – it would be awesome to send those two off with a ring,” Stowers-Smith insisted. “That’s definitely what we’re aiming for and, the way we’re going, we’ve just got to keep building each week.”
Clark wasn’t so sure that should be the driving motivation.
“Him telling us, we embraced him and his decision, but at the end of the day, it’s back to us to win footy games and, at the end of the year, our goal is to win a grand final,” he said.
“That’s where the spark comes from.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Source: Radio New Zealand
“It does. There’s really clear research out there that shows that missing out on sleep by an hour or more can lead to poorer functioning the next day,” says Dr Karyn O’Keefe, from the Sleep/Wake Research Centre.
That one-hour shift can make it harder to get to sleep, and hence harder to wake up, she explains. So it impacts different aspects of functioning like sleepiness, but also mood, reaction time, motivation, concentration and decision making.
Go back, not forward on 5 April.
Unsplash / Getty Images
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Source: New Zealand Police
The intersection of State Highway 1 and Rongotea Road in Manawatū is currently blocked, as police respond to a gathering of anti-social road users.
Motorists are asked to avoid the area and take alternative routes where possible.
ENDS
Issued by Police Media Centre.
Source: Radio New Zealand
Four fire trucks had been working to put the fire out. RNZ / Rob Dixon
A stretch of State Highway One in Dunedin has reopened to one lane, after it was closed due to a house fire.
Fire and Emergency were called to the blaze on Great King Street North just after 6pm on Saturday evening.
Four fire trucks were sent to the scene and the road was closed between Union Street West and St David Street.
There were no reports of injuries and an investigator will be heading to the property.
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Source: Radio New Zealand
Follow all the Super Rugby Pacific action, as the Chiefs take on NSW Waratahs from FMG Stadium in Waikato.
Kickoff is at 7.05pm.
Leroy Carter claims the ball for the Chiefs against Waratahs. DJ Mills/Photosport
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Source: Radio New Zealand
It’s both brilliant and validating that UK band The Pogues are beloved by so many international fans, says Spider Stacy, who now replaces Shane McGowan – a hard-drinking poet, who died in 2023 – as the band’s frontman.
Every time he’s anywhere near an Australian or a New Zealander though, Stacy finds his sentences start sounding like questions.
“It’s like an earworm and I can’t shake it,” he tells RNZ’s Saturday Morning. “I hope it doesn’t come across like I’m sort of making fun, because I’m not.”
The Pogues performing in 2025.
Supplied
The Pogues, led by Shane McGowan, who was born in London to Irish parents, were something of an anomaly when they formed in 1982, Stacy says.
“People would look at us as we were arriving on stage in some pub or whatever in London, and be like, ‘Who are these Herberts?’
“It was, like, ‘Well yeah, these guys may well indeed have accordions and banjos and tin whistles and whatnot, but they’re a punk band, you know’.”
There’s no doubting that – we’re a punk band – in some respects, maybe the last proper London punk band.
Shane MacGowan of British group The Pogues, died on 30 November, 2023, after a long illness.
LEON NEAL / AFP
Stacy has no problem with The Pogues being described as an Irish band, but says, despite their Irish-influenced songs, half the original members were English, so they were more correctly “a London band”.
What all The Pogues did share, he says, was a sense of political justice, expressed with a “velocity” and “attitude” that audiences all around the world responded to.
Spider Stacy
Marnie Ann Joyce
That said, Stacy remains a big part of London’s Irish music scene today and is excited that it’s having “such a creative time”.
In May 2024, just a few months after McGowan died after a long illness, the surviving members of The Pogues got together with a bunch of young guest musicians, including Fontaine’s D.C. drummer Tom Cole, Goat Girl bass player Holly Mullineaux, harpist Iona Zajac and Dara Lynch from the Irish folk group Lankum, for a show at London’s Hackney Empire.
“I just started thinking, ‘Right, OK, there’s been this eruption over the last 10 years in Ireland of really thrilling new talent, people doing very innovative and interesting things with traditional Irish music.”
This video is hosted on Youtube.
Having already done a Pogues reunion “that went on for 14 years”, this show was different for the band, Stacy says. Although it was partly in remembrance of McGowan, the vibe was more celebratory than sad – a tone that The Pogues have always strived for.
“It was more like something from the mid-’80s, so yeah, actually, I felt Shane there.
“There’s all this stuff to say, ‘Look what this man did’, and also, actually, ‘Look what we did together. Isn’t this great, you know’.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Source: Radio New Zealand
Four fire trucks had been working to put the fire out. RNZ / Rob Dixon
Crews were at the scene of a house fire in Dunedin that closed State Highway One, through the city.
Fire and Emergency were called to the blaze on Great King Street North just after 6pm on Saturday evening.
Four fire trucks had been working to put it out and there were no reports of injuries.
A fire investigator had been notified.
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Source: Radio New Zealand
Maddy Green has scored an unbeaten 141 runs to guide the White Ferns home by 66 runs in the deciding one-day international against South Africa at the Basin Reserve.
Green hit a career-best 141 off 128 balls, despite cramping late in her innings, marking her third ODI century. Brooke Halliday also made an impressive contribution of 98 runs.
The pair led a remarkable recovery. after a disastrous start, when the White Ferns were just 3/3.
Green and Halliday’s 211-run partnership is now the highest for the fourth wicket in ODIs for New Zealand, surpassing the previous record of 172 set by Amy Satterthwaite and Melie Kerr.
New Zealand were 98/3 at the halfway mark.
The Proteas looked promising early in their batting innings, with captain Laura Wolvaardt and Tazmin Brits compiling 68 runs for the opening wicket. Woolward and Annerie Dercksen put on 77 more for the second, before the batting order began to collapse, losing 6/59 through the middle.
Pace bowler Rosemay Mair produced her first ODI five-wicket bag with 5/50, including the final scalp of Ayanda Hlubi with almost four overs remaining.
Follow the live action here:
Maddy Green celebrates a century against South Africa. Kerry Marshall/Photosport
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Source: Radio New Zealand
Follow all the Super Rugby Pacific action, as the Chiefs take on NSW Waratahs from FMG Stadium in Waikato.
Kickoff is at 7.05pm.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand