Birth name | William Michael Osborne | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 24 April 1955 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Whanganui, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 82 kg (181 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
School | Wanganui High School | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Notable relative(s) | Glen Osborne (nephew) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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William Michael Osborne (born 24 April 1955) is a former New Zealand rugby union player. A second five-eighth and centre, Osborne represented Wanganui and Waikato at a provincial level. Started his club career with the local Kaierau Rugby Union Club in Wanganui. He was a member of the New Zealand national side, the All Blacks, between 1975 and 1982, playing 48 matches including 16 internationals. [1]
After retiring from playing rugby Osborne has had a successful business career, including: [2]
He also served on the New Zealand Maori Rugby board. In 2017 he was elected vice-president of New Zealand Rugby Union, later ascending to the president's position. [3] In 2022 he was appointed Chair of the Chiefs Rugby board. [4]
In 2021 a new challenge trophy named after Osborne was announced for the Heartland Championship teams, to follow similar rules to the Ranfurly Shield. [5]
Whanganui, also spelt Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whanganui is the 19th most-populous urban area in New Zealand and the second-most-populous in Manawatū-Whanganui, with a population of 42,500 as of June 2024.
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is the governing body of rugby union in New Zealand. It was founded in 1892 as the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), 12 years after the first provincial unions in New Zealand. In 1949 it became an affiliate to the International Rugby Football Board, now known as World Rugby, the governing body of rugby union for the world. It dropped the word "Football" from its name in 2006. The brand name New Zealand Rugby was adopted in 2013. Officially, it is an incorporated society with the name New Zealand Rugby Union Incorporated.
Te Aute College is a school in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand. It opened in 1854 with twelve pupils under Samuel Williams, an Anglican missionary, and nephew and son-in-law of Bishop William Williams. It has a strong Māori character.
Tukoroirangi "Tuku" Morgan is a New Zealand Māori politician and former broadcaster.
Rugby union has been played in New Zealand since 1870 and is the most popular sport in the country as well as being its national sport. In a 2023 survey, 75% of respondents said they followed the sport.
The Heartland Championship is an annual round-robin rugby union competition in men's domestic New Zealand rugby. First played in 1976, it is the third highest level of competition in New Zealand alongside the Ranfurly Shield. It is organised by New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and since 2021, it has been known as the Bunnings Heartland Championship after Bunnings, its naming rights sponsor. A concurrent women's tournament is also held, the Farah Palmer Cup.
The Whanganui Rugby Football Union (WRFU) is the governing body for rugby union in the Whanganui region of New Zealand. The Whanganui Rugby Football Union was formed in 1888.
The King Country Rugby Football Union is a constituent union in the New Zealand Rugby Union. It is located in the central North Island of New Zealand in an area known as the King Country. It was formed in 1922 when the South Auckland Rugby Union was split into three.
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Southern Cross Campus is a composite school that caters for students in Years 1–13 in the suburb of Māngere East in Auckland, New Zealand. The school has deep ties to the Mangere East community by providing education, facilities, and programmes for the wider use of the whole school. It is a Māori and Pacific Islands ethnic school, with students of European (Pākehā), Asian, and other ethnicities as a 0.5% minority.
Rotorua Boys' High School (RBHS) is a state school educating boys from Year 9 to Year 13. It is situated just outside the Rotorua CBD at the intersection of Old Taupo Road and Pukuatua Street in Rotorua, New Zealand. The school is governed by an elected School Board, of which the Principal is ex officio a member under guidelines laid down by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. With Māori enrolment exceeding 75% of the school’s intake, the largest per capita in New Zealand, RBHS has been a longstanding recipient of funding from its Ngāti Whakaue endowment that assisted the construction of the school’s 104-bed hostel, and the purchase of a computer laboratory. RBHS is noted for its performance in sport, with 4 Olympians among its notable alumni, and for having won the Prime Minister of New Zealand Supreme Award for Excellence in Education and the Excellence in Leading Award, making it the top school in the country for 2019. Its retiring principal, Chris Grinter, was the longest serving in the school's history, and in 2022, he received a New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and Māori.
Glen Matthew Osborne is a New Zealand television presenter, former rugby union player and current Police Constable for the New Zealand Police.
Bernard Paul Quinn is a New Zealand businessman, former rugby union player and former politician. He captained the Wellington Rugby Football Union team from 1981 to 1983 and the New Zealand Māori national team from 1980 to 1982. From 2008 to 2011, he was a Member of the New Zealand House of Representatives for the National Party.
Rugby union in New Zealand is structured into four tiers. The top tier is composed of the national representative teams, with the men's team – known as the All Blacks – and the women's team – known as the Black Ferns, at the top, followed by other representative sides such as the Junior All Blacks and Māori All Blacks. These national sides are administered by the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU). Below this level is Super Rugby, where there are five New Zealand sides, each representing a different region of the country. Below this level is provincial rugby, the third tier – each province has a representative side that plays in either the semi-professional Bunnings NPC, or amateur Heartland Championship. These provincial sides are selected of Super Rugby players, and club players from within the province. Club rugby is the fourth and lowest tier, and consists of clubs competing in local leagues organised by a provincial union.
Ihakara Porutu "Kara" Puketapu was a New Zealand public servant and Māori leader. He served as Secretary of Maori Affairs and was later chair of Te Āti Awa based in Waiwhetū, Lower Hutt.
In 1976 the All Blacks toured South Africa, with the blessing of the then-newly elected New Zealand Prime Minister, Rob Muldoon. Twenty-five African nations, Afghanistan, Burma, Guyana, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Syria protested against this by boycotting the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. In their view the All Black tour gave tacit support to the apartheid regime in South Africa. The five Maori players on the tour, Bill Bush, Sid Going, Kent Lambert, Bill Osborne and Tane Norton, as well as ethnic-Samoan Bryan Williams, were offered honorary white status in South Africa. Bush asserts that he was deliberately provocative toward the apartheid regime while he was there.
Mavis Raylene Mullins is a New Zealand businesswoman. She is Māori and identifies with Rangitāne, Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi and Ngāti Ranginui iwi.
Edward Te Rangihiwinui Tauroa, known as Hiwi Tauroa, was a New Zealand rugby union player and coach, school principal, and civil servant of Māori descent.
Robert James Campbell, is a New Zealand socialist, economist, trade unionist, businessman and public servant. He has chaired several organisations and institutions including Resistance Bookshop, the Distribution Worker's Federation, Federation of Labour, Guinness Peat Group (GPG), SkyCity, Summerset Holdings, Tourism Holdings, Te Whatu Ora, and the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). He has also served as Chancellor of Auckland University of Technology since 2019.
The 2021 Heartland Championship, was the 15th edition of the Heartland Championship, a rugby union competition involving the twelve amateur provincial unions in New Zealand. There was no Heartland Championship held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 restrictions.