AucklandNOW: Officiating your peers is a tough job for a teenager, but it is a requirement under a new Basketball New Zealand ruling. This year, every team entering national secondary school premiership tournaments must provide a student referee, from their school, for the duration of the tournament. After struggling to get referees for premiership tournaments, Basketball New Zealand and New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council saw this initiative, first mooted in 2014, as a way to foster more referees. A student referee has been recommended, but not mandatory, for previous…
Read MoreMonth: May 2017
Innovation award for increasing participation rates of teenagers in sport
North Shore Times: By turning up the tunes and dialling down the competitiveness of school sport, increasing numbers of teenagers were enticed to get active on Auckland’s North Shore last year. Small-sided games and a focus on the social aspects of sport were among the solutions students implemented in an award-winning project to get more of their peers playing sport. A Kiwisport project involving students designing and delivering modified sporting opportunities, won a New Zealand Secondary School Sports Council innovation in school sport award. The project was a collaboration between Harbour Sport and local…
Read MoreSt Paul’s College out to combat rugby stereotype with first ever badminton team
AucklandNOW: St Paul’s College in Ponsonby has long been recognised for being a top rugby league school. In fact, it’s just about all they’ve been known for over the past decade, with an alumni list full of some of New Zealand’s best including Stacey Jones and Nigel Vagana. But a growing demand for alternative opportunities has led to the college starting up its first-ever competitive badminton programme. Four teams have been entered in the local school competition and some of the boys, going by size alone, could be mistaken for a first XV front row.…
Read MorePapatoetoe High School face Aorere College in important match
Manukau Courier: Papatoetoe High School face Aorere College in a decisive College Rugby League match in Papatoetoe on Wednesday. Victory will put the unbeaten Papatoetoe first XIII a step closer to qualifying for the championship round of the competition for the first time. A loss will see Aorere over take them as pool B leaders and put Papatoetoe in the unenviable position of having to beat Kelston Boys’ High School in their final pool game to qualify. Coach Mike Punga is expecting a cracker with places in the championship round…
Read MoreRangitoto & Westlake Boys Remain Unbeaten
Lacey Lowdown: The largest crowd of the season was on hand to witness a couple of the Auckland Premier Grade heavy hitters go head to head on Friday night. It was packed to the rafters in the Westlake Sports Centre as local favourite James Moors scored the first points of the game although Mitch Dance and Kruz Perrott-Hunt opened up a slim 6-2 lead for the visitors. Perrott-Hunt was forced to the bench with a second early foul but Marvin Williams-Dunn twice hit threes to open a 12-4 lead for the…
Read MoreMAGS ‘Robbed’ in Overtime
Lacey Lowdown: There were four good games in the third round of the Auckland Secondary Schools Boys Premier grade but none could match the finish at St Kentigern College. Mt Albert Grammar were Robb-ed of victory against St Kent’s as Kyle Robb scored the last five points of the game to clinch an exciting 68-66 overtime victory. With St Kent’s trailing 66-63 Robb banked a triple then was fouled after garnering a steal with 8 seconds left to play. He then showed a cool head by making the resulting free-throws…
Read MoreHeart beats size in Harbour First XV action
NZ Herald: Takapuna Grammar have made a 2-0 winning start to the North Harbour 1A competition, and certainly turned heads on Saturday with their 27-22 home win over Massey. It was all the more meritorious because they had to draw on some deep reserves of defensive commitment to repel the considerably bigger Massey team, which scored four tries to two. Man of the match, Takapuna Grammar No 10 Oscar Koller, contributed no less than 22 points from six goals and a try. Koller’s try came from a scrum going left…
Read MoreRunning Against The Odds
College Sport Media: “My body was tight. My hamstring tore slightly and I had to take five weeks off,” James Guthrie-Croft laments of his experience at the National Secondary Schools Athletics Championships in December. In the semi-finals of the 100m Guthrie-Croft ran a quicker time than eventual champion Nick Smith, but was forced to withdraw from the decider. “It would have been an interesting race. Nick ran a great final so who knows if I would have won, but it was disappointing to miss out.” Guthrie-Croft admits. The misfortune of…
Read MoreSouthern Cross Campus 1st XIII off to a winning start
Manukau Courier: An Auckland College Rugby League premiership is the prize Rod Ratu wants ticketed off his bucket list. It’s the one piece of silverware Ratu and his Southern Cross Campus 1st XIII need to make them complete. They already have a national secondary school title in the bag, a premiership they won when they beat Kelston Boys’ High School 16-12 in last year’s grand final at Pulman Park, Papakura. But it’s the Auckland championship, which has been dominated by St Paul’s College and of late, Kelston, which is proving so elusive. Read more…
Read MoreMacleans win late plus W’s for Westlake, Rangi & Rosmini
Lacey Lowdown: Auckland Grammar School visited Westlake Boys High in arguably the game of the round in Auckland Premier Grade basketball on Friday night as two of the top four sides from last season went head to head. Despite a second straight thirty points haul from Tom Higgins a more balanced home side scoring effort prevailed to record an 85-78 win in front of a good sized crowd at Westlake. Campbell Green opened the scoring for Grammar but point guard Josh Hidalgo scored a couple of baskets worthy of a…
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