Last week a team of 39 students represented Chisnallwood at the annual International AIMS Games in Tauranga. AIMS stands for Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools. (year 7 & 8 students) Along with teams from all over New Zealand there were competitors from Australia, Tonga, Cook Islands and Philippines. 10,000+ competitors and 3000 + Managers, and coaches converged on Tauranga for an amazing week of competition We had students representing us in Gymnastics, Yachting, BMX, Table Tennis, Rugby 7’s, Netball and Football. All students were billeted by Tauranga Intermediate for the week which was a new experience for many. We are very proud of the way the students always gave it their best.
Gymnastics
Harrison Reid (Year 7) took part in the Mens Artistic Twisters competition. This involved him completing routines in Vault, Floor and Mat. The first day was a teams event and his individual score placed him second overall in the Individual event. The second day was a repeat of the first but only for individual accumulative points.
Harrison went onto finish a very commendable 5 out of 32 competitors many of whom were Year 8. He is keen to return next year and to do better
Boys Football
This years Chisnallwood Boys Football team was made up of only two previous players from last year. The rest of the team being composed of new year 8 and two year 7 players, so only limited experience could be called upon.
This year's competition saw a total of 59 teams divided into 8 pools. As per previous years the teams were split such that each pool contained a mixture of teams based on last years rankings. Our pool had teams ranked 3rd (Remuera Int.), 11th (Glen Eden Int.), 19th (Kamo Int.), 27th (Francis Douglas Memorial College), 44th (Beachlands School) & 52nd (Omokoroa Point School).
Our boys competed well in all the games that they participated in, showing a great deal of school spirit to continue to battle on even when referee calls and the game results did not go there way. Of particular mention was their fourth game where they came up against Glen Eden. An outstanding work rate by Matthew Fairbrother in the midfield, brilliant defensive work by Reuben Williams, and a couple of top class saves by our Goal-keeper, Harry Stanley, meant that we were only 0-1 down at half time. The game was still within our reach. However a couple of bad referee calls and two very lucky goals (one being after we had to remove our #1 Goal-keeper due to injury), meant that the final score was a 0-4 loss. However the boys should be very proud of the way that they performed that game. Even Glen Eden’s coach, whom i spoke with after the game, was " ....extremely impressed by the way that we played, ....was not expecting that from us, .... the team played well and it was a tougher match than their team had been expecting......". I myself was extremely happy with the way the team performed that afternoon.
Final results of pool play meant that we maintained our 5th place seeding within our pool.
As we moved into the crossover-play portion of the tournament we could not capitalize on opportunities and ended up losing two of our games by just a single goal. However the boys rallied back with a 3-1 win over Aquinas College in their second to last match.
The cut-throat nature of tournament play meant that the earlier losses in the crossover-play hurt us as far as our final placing and the four bottom placed teams in our pool all ended up dropping a couple of places on last years finish
As a side note, Remuera Int. went on to compete in the final, finishing 2nd to Northcross, Glen Eden Int. played off for 3rd and 4th, and Kamo Int. finished as they placed last year at 19th.
During general conversation whilst at the tournament it was noted that most of the teams competing this year had been playing/training since the beginning of the school year. If we are to remain competitive during further attendances to this tournament then it might be worthwhile looking at bringing a team together at the start of the year as well rather than waiting til the start of term two
Overall though it was an exciting and outstanding tournament to be involved in for both the boys and myself and well worth considering attending again next year.
Netball: This year we took the netball A team to represent Chisnallwood at the AIMS Games, with a team of 10. We had played together in the weekly Tuesday competition, winning the B grade having not lost a game in round two. The Netball competition has grown to well over 100 teams, with the first three days having three games per day. We had two losses and four wins in pool play ending 3rd out of 7 teams placing us in the B grade. This was an outstanding achievement for the girls with the quality of competition up there being much higher than our Tuesday weekly sport competition.
By the end of the first three days the girls were pretty exhausted with injuries beginning to set in and tight muscles. This definitely taught the girls the importance of a solid warm up and warm down. On our final days the girls were very lucky to get a stretch session at the Spee Training Gym with Reece and Vanita, helping them to keep going . With a total of 13 games over the week the girls did a tremendous job to keep going all week and achieve some outstanding results, finishing in 60th place.
We are all very proud of the girls up there and they received fantastic feedback from the referees, other teams and our Tauranga Intermediate families who came and supported the team on the sideline. “The week had its up and downs and we all stuck together as a team and pulled through at the end, to finish in B grade.” netball team
A big thank you as well to our parents we had supporting us up in Tauranga and our team mums Sara and Belinda who were there all week through the cold weather and winds.
Yachting:
Emmeline Neale represented Chisnallwood in the Yachting event at the AIMS Games this year, with 95 sailors taking part, competing in Optimist dinghies.
Emme was the only competitor from Christchurch, and the only girl from the South Island competing.
This years' event saw challenging conditions on all 3 days of racing, with heavy rain, cold conditions, and strong gusty winds. Retirements, capsizes and rescues were the order of the day - the first race on Sunday resulting in nearly 40 boats and sailors ending up back on shore for rest, repairs or both!
After the first 5 races (where the fleet had been mixed), the fleet split in two for the final medal races on the last day, which saw Emmeline finish the regatta in 37th place in the Silver fleet.
The event was won by top-ranked Optimist sailor George Rush from Kristin School in Auckland, who eventually won on countback from Mason Mulcahy of Takapuna Intermediate.
Rugby Sevens:
Our Rugby sevens team had a great week in Tauranga competing against 49 schools. We were placed in a very tough pool with the two eventual finalists and the plate winners. We went through pool play winning 3 games from 6, which put us into the bowl competition narrowly missing out on the plate due to points differential.
Going through the bowl games we had some convincing wins but our last two games were much closer affairs, drawing with Devon and a last-minute loss to Papamoa. This meant we again just missed out on the semis so would fight it out for placings. We ended the tournament with a big win over Tuakau College 45-7 and then a disappointing loss to Whakatane in our final game who we had earlier beaten on the first day.
After 5 days the boys were pretty exhausted but achieved a great deal about the game of sevens (which almost all of them had never played) and about themselves as individuals and as a team. Our eventual placing of 30th was not representative of the teams ability but still a fair effort for the only south island school to again compete in this north island dominated sport. I would like to thank all the boys for their commitment and effort of the last 3 month of training and their efforts at the tournament it was a pleasure to coach them.
Also a massive thanks to Mark Jackman who came in and helped with many of the training sessions and passed on a great deal of knowledge and skills to the boys! Finally I would like to thank Sua Tauti who co-coached the team with me, the boys and I loved having you part of the coaching team, your support, advice and management of the team was awesome and it made the trip very enjoyable for all of us!