The Northern Saints has evolved from the senior branch of St Ives Rugby Union Football Club, on the North Shore of Sydney which began April 1957 when “a motley team of 12 year olds trooped onto the field to inaugurate the Saints tradition”. At this time, St Ives was still a largely rural community made up of market gardens and orchards. In 2017 St Ives Rugby celebrated 60 years of rugby. Today, the Junior and Senior clubs operate separately but are still directly affiliated with the main St Ives Rugby Club entity for the good of the future of the club as a whole. We collectively realised that in order to continue being a great community sporting club, we needed freedom to address the different nature and impacts of the challenges we face – so the Northern Saints were born.