Celebrating Sevens Rugby 
After successfully winning the inaugural Super 8 Sevens tournament held in Rotorua in November and several strong performances throughout the Waikato Open Men's Events, the HBHS Premier Sevens team travelled to Auckland to defend their National title at The Condor Sevens Tournament held at King's College, in December.
Due to a late withdrawal within our pool, we began the tournament with a bye. This meant our first match was in fact a part of the second round and our opponents St Patrick's College Silverstream from Wellington already had their eye in, after a successful victory over Mount Albert Grammar School. After somewhat of a shaky start, we eventually got the ball rolling and managed a 22-14 victory. Our second match saw us take on Mount Albert Grammar. This game certainly proved the point that it takes a game or two to dust off the cobwebs and find your feet in a sevens tournament, because that the boys did In a record breaking 59-0 win. This performance saw us top our pool and progress into day two, finals day, in what some would say a better position than the rest of the sides as we had played one less game. We qualified alongside three Auckland 1A schools, three fellow Super 8 schools and Westlake Boys' High School. We certainly felt fresh and ready to go again!
A quarter-final clash against De La Salle College of South Auckland was our first test of the day and in what proved to be a real step-up in level of competition, we were able to put together a satisfying performance and pull away in the second half to win 27-5. This was capped off with a 50m chase down in defence from Hiraka Waitai-Haenga right before the line, resulting in a turnover and length of the field try at the other end for Inga Kokohu.
This set up a semi-final showdown with Palmerston North Boys' High School who we had played in The Super 8 final a month earlier where we scraped through by the narrowest of margins, so we knew we would have our work cut out and require our very best performance of the season if we were to be successful. Sometimes in life, you get those days, or those games where everything just clicks and turns to magic! This certainly proved to be one of those games for us. Led by an outstanding performance from Payton Spencer scoring a hat-trick of tries, we dominated the match from start to finish and ran away with a hugely satisfying 43-7 victory. Morale was high, but it was now time to turn our heads toward a grand final where Auckland champions and tournament standouts Kelston Boys' High School lay in wait.
Kelston had defeated old foe Rotorua Boys' High School in their semi-final, and is a school who put a lot of time and energy into their sevens programme, having produced many fantastic athletes and having won six NZSS titles over the years. We knew this was the final that everybody had been waiting to see. Amazingly, this was going to be the first time all tournament that we were going to start with the same team for consecutive matches. A credit to the depth of this squad and the genuine competition for positions that proved so valuable for us.
The final started and at first glance it seemed we had been left standing in the gates. Kelston went bang-bang and before we knew it, we were down 14-0 and looking as though we didn’t know what had struck us. The boys rallied and managed to cross the line through Brodie Robinson right before half time. A missed conversion leaving the score at 14-5 at the break.
The second half began and what seemed like an age of back and forth sevens, a piece of Hiraka brilliance from his own line broke the game open and with a try under the posts the score was reduced to a two point margin. With only a couple of minutes left on the clock Kelston broke through a tiring defence for what looked likely to be a certain try and game over. A flying Brodie Robinson had other ideas and in what was the finest defensive display all tournament chased down the Kelston player a metre from the line. Unfortunately, his heroics were all in vain, as the player popped a pass to his teammate who the referee judged to have been tackled early by one of our boys resulting in a penalty try and a 21-12 scoreline with a minute left on the clock.
Give up, it’s over, you had a good run. Not this team! In what became something out of a movie scene the boys refused that this would be the end of them. Attaining the kick off the boys shifted the ball from side to side, with every player handling it on several occasions before Oli Mathis finally carved his way through the covering defence to score a try that brought the score to 21-17. The referee ruled that there was enough time for the kick off, but the next stoppage in play would be the end of the game. In sevens, the team that scores has to restart with the kick off so we knew whatever we did, we had to find a way to get the ball back off the kick. Dallas Rata-Makene did just that for us and the ball was ours. Again, the ball went from side to side until that man again, Oli Mathis got the ball 60m from the line and skinned his defender on the outside, before linking up with Dallas to put him in for the championship winning try! The moments that followed were the type that any person involved in sport dreams of. Pure joy.
The weekend was topped off by Liam Anderson and Oli Mathis being selected into the Condors Tournament team, with Oli deservedly being named the Most Valuable Player of the Final and a hugely deserved piece of recognition for Liam whose skill and toughness had seen us through the right side of so many tight encounters throughout the year.
Brodie Robinson then went on to represent New Zealand and Dallas Rata-Makene the New Zealand Māori in the World School Boys Sevens Tournament, whilst the remainder of the team set out for Thailand and the 15 man game once again.
Further acknowledgement must go to Aki Tuivailala for winning his second consecutive National title in Years 11 and 13, with the 2021 event having been canceled in between times. Furthermore, to the school for extending their NZSS records with a 7th consecutive condors title and a 9th overall.
The squad should be commended for their outstanding dedication once the school year had finished, developing a terrific player base in the process. I thank them for their over and above effort and devotion for our school and our sport. A further thanks to Mr Te Ruki-Chambers and Mr Miller for assisting in this depth in players, through their leadership of the development team at their respective condors event, losing narrowly to, you guessed it, Kelston. Also thanks to Mr Killian and Mr Du Toit for their leadership and guidance of the Junior Premier team.
I would like to extend my thanks to fellow coaches Mr Hotham and Mr Kirkham for their dedication, experience and expertise, Manager Mrs Barbara Clark for her organisation and support, physio, Chris Pett for his tireless work and dedication and to Mrs Hassall and other staff for their support at the tournament and throughout the summer of sevens.