Eastern Bay residents have the opportunity to have the Chiefs around for dinner.

The Super Rugby team is coming to Whakatane as part of the Chiefs' Summer Roadie 2016.

As well as being able to view an open training session, Whakatane residents will have a unique opportunity to bid for and host a pair of Chiefs players for dinner.

The Chiefs will arrive in Whakatane on the evening of Tuesday January 26, when they will be collected by their successful dinner date bidders. The following morning, the Chiefs will carry out an open training session at Whakatane Rugby Park – from 9am to 10.30am – with an opportunity for the public to snatch a few autographs and high fives.

Bay of Plenty Rugby's Eastern Bay of Plenty Regional rugby manager Mark Seymour says the Chiefs visit will benefit the community in more ways than one, with proceeds of the TradeMe auctions going to fund equipment for the Eastern Bay junior rugby clubs.

'This is a great opportunity to support our local junior clubs, as well as showing some good old Eastern Bay hospitality to our top rugby players,” he says.

'We've got a strong and positive rugby culture here in Whakatane, so our local clubs and groups might like to pool together to bid for the right to host players at their clubrooms and make an evening of it with a potluck or a hangi.”

There will be 18 ‘dinner date' auctions running from 7.30pm on Sunday January 17, to 7.30pm on Sunday January 24, with each auction offering a pair of Chiefs players from 6pm to 8.30pm on Tuesday January 26.

Mark jokes while some of the Chiefs players might look like they'd ‘eat you out of house and home', their eating habits are fairly healthy during the pre-season, so it's not all about the food.

'The players know that it's the people in towns and rural communities like ours that are backing them and supporting them when they're on the field, so they're excited to meet our people and experience our piece of paradise.”