On Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th August Columba College competed against St Margaret's College (Christchurch), St Hilda's Colligate (Dunedin) and Craighead Diocesan School (Timaru) in the annual winter QUAD exchange. This years host was St Margaret's College.

There is always a lot of excitement and anticipation surrounding the annual QUAD tournament which sees the participating schools go head to head in Netball, Hockey, Badminton and Debating.

As per tradition, there is intense competition between the teams with matches being played in good-hearted spirit; this is combined with high levels of historical rivalry with this being the 62nd year the exchange has taken place! The exchange is held over two days, drawing many spectators and side-line supporters. Talent was evident from all participating schools and made for some great quality games/debates and an action-packed couple of days. 

Debating

Columba performed exceptionally well, gaining plenty of useful experience as well as important feedback from top debaters across Canterbury. Columba's first debate on Monday morning was up against St Hilda's. They negated the motion: This House would require search engines and social media companies to take active steps to prevent the formation of "filter bubbles". Columba ended up losing this debate in what was noted as one of closest debates during the exchange. Columba was up against St Margaret's College in their second debate for the day. Columba affirmed the motion: This House would rather prisoners were released on the basis of rehabilitation, rather than a fixed sentence. We came out on top in what proved to be an entertaining and high-quality debate. Columba's final debate was on Tuesday against Craighead. This was another thrilling debate in which Columba negated the motion: This House would rather Australia and New Zealand offered citizenship and land to populations of low lying pacific islands, rather than seeking to prevent climate change effects by building sea walls and other preventative projects. This proved to be another successful debate for our team and we took another win, putting us in 2nd place overall.

Netball 

Our netball team was up against some very tidy netball sides. First up was St Hilda's who showed their class and came out with the first win 51-28. This put some fuel on the fire and our students wanted to show what they could produce as a unit out on the court. In the next game against Craighead they did just that, showing some great efforts on defence and then converting their own turnovers and coming away with a solid 46-32 win. Their final game on Tuesday was a narrow loss to St Margaret's, going down 39-31. The game was mostly even, however, during one quarter St Margaret's managed to gain some points on us and we were unable to come back after that. Columba came away with 3rd place in netball. It was great to see such an awesome team culture amongst the netball girls and they always looked to be enjoying each others' company. 

Hockey

Unfortunately, the hockey teams had a bad run of weather, playing in both snow and hail on Monday! Adverse conditions didn't stop our girls from putting together a classy performance against a strong St Hilda's team, however, coming away with a 1-1 draw. With a small timeframe turnaround and the weather worsening, we were scheduled to play St Margaret's College next. At 2-0 down with 17 minutes left on the clock, both teams decided to end the game as the weather wasn't looking to be clearing and the girls were freezing. As the game had not been played for the full 70 minutes this, therefore, meant that the score was a draw 0-0, according to the NZHF Rules. On the final day of the exchange, the weather was almost the complete opposite of the previous day's. We had sunshine and the girls were taking their jerseys off because they were too hot! This made for excellent conditions to play our final game of hockey and the Columba hockey team came away with an outstanding win 4-1 against Craighead Diocesan School. This was a fantastic way to finish the exchange and put them on the board second equal overall with St Margaret's College.

Badminton

Our badminton team had an extremely busy day on Monday as all three games against opposition teams were all played in one day. First up, Columba found strong competition in St Margaret's College, going down 5-1. This didn't deter our badminton team's determination though, and they faced Craighead to come away with an outstanding 6-0 win! The final game was a grudge match against our fellow Dunedin school, St Hilda's Collegiate, in which we again came out victorious with a 4-2 win. A high level of effort was displayed by all Columba participants and this helped the team come away with an overall placing of 2nd! This was a fantastic effort from our badminton team and coaching staff.

1. Overall placing

After all the points were collated from the individual sport placings the following overall placing for the schools were given: St Margaret's College placed first on 12.5 points, St Hilda's came in 2nd with a total of 12 points, Columba placed third with a total of 10.5 points and Craighead Diocesan School came in 4th place with a total of 5 points.

Special mention to the following students who displayed high levels of effort, fair play and team spirit:

Netball - Riley Piebenga

Hockey - Briar Duncan

Badminton - Mia Revell-Lynch

Debating - Sophie Bowmar

We want to extend a big thank you to all the coaches, managers, parents and school staff who attended the exchange and supported our students during the exchange. We look forward to continuing the relationship with all participating schools in the future.