We had a great season with many ups and downs, changes and challenges, which we were able to overcome as a team.

At pre-season trials, we saw a large number of players ranging in different ages and knowledge of the game. We welcomed many new players into our team in 2023 with two Year 9 players. Our new players settled in very well over the first few training sessions led and coached by Matt and Sean Wilson, both ex-Burnside High Hockey legends.

Being primarily a young team, we found ourselves in SSL Division 1 in the Canterbury Hockey Association competition, where we played a mix of First XI and Second XI teams. We had a very rough start to the season, losing a pre-season game 6-1 to Christchurch Boys High. After the loss, we gathered ourselves at training and made new plans. The following game saw us lose a very close game to Christ's College, where they scored the winning goal frustratingly in the last second of the game. We made some changes throughout the season with players switching positions and ending up performing better while adapting to the change. Our first three Friday night hockey games were all tight games with the Burnside boys only losing by one goal.

As the season progressed, we started seeing some positive results from the guidance of our coaches and senior players. We finally secured our first win, 5-1 against Rolleston College and the following week saw us draw 2-2 with the top of the table team, Christchurch Boys High, who we lost to in the pre-season game. The rest of the school Hockey season had mixed results, with wins, draws and losses.

Approaching Winter Tournament Week, we were far better than we were at the beginning of the season and we worked well as a team. Burnside was entered into the Johnson Cup tournament, which was held in Nelson. We were humbled in our first game by Nelson College, who ended up being a finalist in the tournament. We would go on to beat Rolleston again, drawing with a strong Southland Boys' team. We finished 4th in our pool and faced our rivals, Ashburton (Christchurch top division secondary school team). We won the game from an early goal and held the lead throughout the game, winning 1-0. This game saw us play for 5th place against Dunstan High School. The game didn’t go our way and we ended up losing 2-1. However, we learned a lot and this tournament showed us our strengths and weaknesses. The younger team members showed tremendous improvement and great potential. During some of our games, we had the support of the Burnside Girls Hockey First XI team. We would also show up to support some of their games. It was a great moment to see both the Burnside hockey teams supporting each other!

After Tournament Week, we had a team break-up where we got an opportunity to say goodbye to Noah Craw, our only Year 13 player, who was our captain and played a massive role in the team this year.

On behalf of the Burnside Boys First XI Hockey team, we would like to thank Matt and Sean Wilson, our coaches and Mr McIntosh, our goalkeeper coach, for helping us improve our skills and knowledge of the game over the year. We would also like to thank Mr Watson our manager, and Mrs Taylor for helping organise everything including our games, trainings and our tournament in Nelson. Finally, we would like to thank all the parents and supporters who came to the turf to watch us play as none of this would have been an outcome without you.

Noah Craw and Aiden Chai

Captain and Co-Captain