The club, which celebrates its jubilee next month, was founded in 1886, only a few years after the first New Zealand rugby union was formed in Canterbury.
By the 1950s, it needed team headquarters, so members rolled up their sleeves and assembled a one-room Nissen hut.
A grandstand, a unique prospect at the time, was also built.
The stand, which seated 70, with three cramped changing rooms beneath, was mysteriously burned down in the middle of the night in 1966.
In 1961 work began on new clubrooms, its maroon-coloured roof matching the team kit.
It was from then until the early 2000s that the club was buzzing, with four teams on the go in that period. In those years it also produced one Black Fern, Maree Edwards, and All Blacks Jimmy Cowan and Justin Marshall.
Jubilee committee member and club life member Lyn Newton, said those years were the club’s ‘‘glory days’’.
‘‘That was the best rugby that you'd go and watch because [the teams were supported by] ... their clubs and their supporters.
‘‘It was a great brand of rugby because it was really competitive.’’
Club patron and former lock Trevor Newton has witnessed the code’s ebbs and flows over the years..
‘‘I started playing rugby at Mataura School at 7 [years old] and I'm still involved now at 68.’’
Mr Newton, who also coached a senior team for about eight years, said the modern game also takes a different shape.
‘‘Back in the day we started with doing about 20 laps of the paddock, just to warm up. And then ... sometimes you wouldn't even hold a ball in a practice, whereas it's got far more technical now.’’
This is not the only change he has seen over the years.
Players no longer competed so fiercely for spots as the number of sports now available for children to play had reduced demand, Mr Newton said.
The club experiencing the success it had in earlier days might be a bit too much to ask, Mrs Newton said.
‘‘I'd love to think that, but if you look overall in club rugby, it's just slowly getting strangled to death.
[This year] we only had 13 names for our senior team. So we just decided that we wouldn't enter a senior team, only a senior Cs and the women are going to enter in the development grade this year.’’
But the Newtons remain optimistic the ball will continue to remain in play.
‘‘It's got its challenges at the moment, but ... the club has bounced back before and ... I'm hopeful it'll do so,’’ Mr Newton said.
The Mataura Rugby Club committee is also optimistic, as it has been putting together the club’s 140-year jubilee celebrations next month.
The celebrations will include a get-together for a duel between an all-star and invitational team under lights on Friday, May 22.
Saturday will be a club day with junior, women's teams and senior Cs taking the field in that order, and in the evening the club will host a meal, auction of all star jerseys and live music.
The celebrations will be wrapped up with a barbecue and cleanup on Sunday, May 24.
