Christchurch Girls' High School has won the NZ Secondary Schools Condor Sevens Tournament!

After qualifying by dominating the Canterbury Spring Sevens qualifiers, CGHS travelled to Auckland for the Condor Sevens. 

This was our fifth time at the tournament. For our Y13s, Captain Helen O'Connor, Charlotte Allen, Maggie Kelly Jordyn Williams and Gemma Diederich, this was their last chance at Condors! 

CGHS has been consistent in this tournament, regularly making the semi finals and making the final in 2017. This year, the girls trained harder than ever before and had set their eyes on the title. 

Pool play was relatively straightforward, with CGHS despatching Aorere, Long Bay and Tauranga Girls for a cumulative score of 95 - 12, including a massive 40-0 win over Tauranga Girls. 

In the quarter-final CGHS beat Manurewa 31-12 to earn a place in the semi against Hamilton Girls'. This was a bit of a grudge match, with most of our Sevens squad having been in the 15-a-side team that lost the Top Four final to Hamilton back in August. 

Sevens is a different game and CGHS were up 17-0, shocking four-time Condors winners Hamilton! HGHS fought back, and they scored three quick tries to tie the score 17-17. The game continued to double-extra time when Jorja Miller crossed to win CGHS the semi and take us to the final! 

Here we would face 2018 Champions Howick College, sporting a very experienced line-up. However our girls were up for the final in a big way! Jorja Miller continued the amazing form she had shown all tournament, scoring a near-incredible four tries in the final. The entire team played some of their best sevens of the whole season, especially on defence, forcing mistakes from Howick and making their playmakers panic. The final score was 29-14 and CGHS were Champions! 

Jorja Miller was named in the tournament team, and also as MVP of the tournament, but all of our girls played well and Naia Toaolamai-Holden, Holly Wratt-Groeneweg and Gemma Diederich were considered for the tournament team.

A special thanks to our coaching and management team of Jamie Livingstone, Patrick Coady, Anna Livingstone and Tamara Toaolamai. Jamie has been the coach of CGHS Rugby and Sevens for nearly five years and has taken CGHS rugby from strength to strength.