Kirk patrick to speak at Eastern's 50th

The Eastern Rugby Football Club will celebrate its 50th birthday this weekend with about 250 people expected at the festivities.

Former All Black captain and loose forward Ian Kirkpatrick will be the guest speaker at the club's dinner on Saturday night at the Waikouaiti Events Centre.

Club president Jeff Grubb said there had been plenty of interest in the celebrations from far and wide and a good weekend of events was planned.

A get-together at the club rooms on Friday night will have Paul Allison as guest speaker, and Dick Taylor will host events during the weekend.

On Saturday, there will be junior games at the club, followed by a match between the Eastern and Taieri premier 2 sides. This match will be for the Peter Brown Memorial, which is held by Eastern.

A family barbecue will wind up the weekend on Sunday.

Grubb said plenty of former club players and officials were coming for the weekend and numbers had picked up in the past couple of weeks. People were coming from as far away as Western Australia.

The club was formed in 1965 when Palmerston and Waikouaiti merged.

Eastern has played in the senior - now known as premier - grade sporadically over the years.

It had a good spell in the top division in the 1970s but dropped down to the second tier in 1983 when it lost to Ravensbourne.

It challenged Zingari-Richmond for top-flight status in 1990 but lost before going up the following year.

Eastern remained in the top grade and then combined with the Dunedin club for one year before dropping out after the 2000 season.

At present it has a premier 2 side and an under-18 side.

Eastern has had one All Black in midfield back Lyn Jaffray, who played for the club from 1974 to 1978.

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