The New Zealand Provincial Championship is a tournament where the heritage of the teams involved means that by and large, the jerseys are often quite traditional, and don’t veer too far from the established norm, but the Tasman Makos are a bit different.
Having only existed since the merger of Nelson and Marlborough Bay in 2006, the Makos aren’t shackled by decades of tradition, and in recent years, they’ve certainly shown it, with some truly out-there jersey designs that have been, sorry, awful.
Thankfully, this year’s jersey is a vast improvement on the last couple of years’ none-more-mako designs. In fact, crest aside, there’s nary a shark to be seen here – but that doesn’t mean this shirt is boring.
Yes, instead we have a rather unusual sublimated motif that covers the top half of the front of the shirt, and we’re not entirely sure what to call it beyond ‘loads of random wiggly lines’… because… well look at it.
It’s quite a cool pattern though, and we like that they’ve adopted the very on-trend fade-out from bottom to top that prevents this pattern getting a bit too much – instead it feels like a welcome bit of ornamentation on an otherwise fairly clean design.
Whether or not Tasman replicate their improbable run to the Championship final like they freshly promoted Makos did back in 2014 remains to be seen, but they’ll do so wearing a far better shirt than they’ve had in a while.
Rugby Shirt Watch 