Yarrow Stadium
New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand
Yarrow Stadium, New Plymouth, New Zealand — opened 1947, 1 rugby league games hosted, home of Taranaki Rugby Football Union, the Chiefs (Super Rugby, since 2013, formerly the Hurricanes 1996-2013), Central Districts Stags (cricket), and the Taranaki Sharks (a domestic NZRL rugby league club); no elite-level rugby league tenancy — a single relocated NRL fixture.
Sourcing caveat: The match's round number is given inconsistently between sources (Rugby League Project's "Round 11" vs Wikipedia's "round 9") and could not be resolved from a third source; the date, score and attendance are not affected and are consistent across both.
Ground facts
| Opened | 1947 (First developed as a rugby ground in 1931, with the first stadium completed in 1947; a separate infobox figure of "August 1972" likely reflects a later formal opening or redevelopment milestone rather than the ground's original construction — an internal inconsistency in the sourcing that could not be resolved further.) |
| Home club | Taranaki Rugby Football Union, the Chiefs (Super Rugby, since 2013, formerly the Hurricanes 1996-2013), Central Districts Stags (cricket), and the Taranaki Sharks (a domestic NZRL rugby league club); no elite-level rugby league tenancy — a single relocated NRL fixture |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 1 |
| Top recorded crowd | 12,833 |
| Capacity | 30,000 (30,345 with standing room); a 2008 safety evaluation reportedly capped safe capacity at approximately 17,000 until upgrades ahead of the 2011 Rugby World Cup restored it to around 25,500 |
| Test matches hosted | 1 |
| Floodlights installed | four light towers built in 1998 |
| Surface | grass, sand-based with irrigation and drainage |
| First rugby league match | 21 May 2016 — Canberra Raiders 38-12 New Zealand Warriors, NRL 2016, a Warriors "home" fixture relocated to New Plymouth (attendance 12,833, our recorded top and only crowd) |
| Years used | 2016 |
| Location | New Plymouth, Taranaki |
Name history
- Rugby Park — the ground's earlier name
- Yarrow Stadium — from August 2002, a naming-rights sponsorship by Yarrows the Bakers, in use at the time of the sole rugby league match described here
- Stadium Taranaki — since February 2025, after Yarrows declined to renew its naming-rights sponsorship
Rugby league history
This fits the Warriors' periodic practice of relocating NRL home fixtures to regional New Zealand centres to grow the code's following outside Auckland — the same pattern seen at Owen Delany Park (Taupō, 2011) and Forsyth Barr Stadium (Dunedin, 2014). A separate, earlier New Zealand Warriors vs Parramatta Eels match was played here on 13 February 2005 (Warriors won 20-10), but as a pre-season trial rather than a sanctioned first-class fixture, it is not reflected in our directory's single recorded game — consistent with Rugby League Project's usual practice of excluding trial matches from venue tallies.
Home of the Taranaki Rugby Football Union and the Chiefs (Super Rugby); also a cricket venue for the Central Districts Stags.
Historic Test matches, Cup & Grand Finals hosted
- 21 May 2016 — Canberra Raiders 38-12 New Zealand Warriors, NRL (12,833)
Pre-dates the site's structured match-by-match records for these competitions, so listed here as sourced facts rather than linked match pages.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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