While we follow the progress of the Otago Boys’ old boy Hamish Bond the NZ Seven’s and Valarie Adams road to Rio. One of our community is part of this Olympic qualifying dream.

Staff member Brent Matehaere is with the Tall Ferns on their Olympic qualification programme. He has been with the team as an assistant coach since last Friday and will travel with the team to China where they play China (8*), Montenegro (29) and the Czech Republic (5) twice in two cities. His travels will take him to Hengyang in the Hunan Province and Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia. He returns following this part of the programme where he will then watch with an avid interest the rest of the programme where the Tall Ferns will need to beat either France (4) or Cuba (13) to have a likely crossover with either Argentina (15) or Turkey (10).

This is Mr Matehaere’s second trip to China this year. He was with the Junior Tall Ferns (U19) when he was successfully appointed to this position. He has been with the national programme since 2011 and has been involved with the Tall Ferns through the support of the Skegg’s Foundation, Otago Boys’ and his family.

The school wishes him all the best in his travels and looks forward to reports.

* World Ranking – New Zealand is ranked 22nd out of 211 member nations 4 more than FIFA and 178 more than Netball.