Marist St Pats Rugby Club celebrated its 50th birthday in 2020, the club’s first senior team having run out on to Athletic Park to play the Wellington club on Saturday 3 April 1971. The new club had officially been created late the previous year when members of the Marist Old Boys and St Pats Old Boys clubs voted in favour of a merger. The Marist club had been launched in Wellington in 1918, and St Pats Old Boys followed in 1926. Both clubs were at their greatest strength in the post-war years. Marist won the Jubilee Cup in 1948 and 1950. St Pats Old Boys had its sole taste of cup glory when it shared the trophy in 1949. Marist had a run of Jubilee Cup successes in the 1960s but by the end of that decade neither club was the force it had been. With both clubs in competition for the same pool of players, the case for amalgamation was overwhelming. The vote in favour went through late in 1970.