Last weekend 3 Roncalli College teams participated in the South Island Secondary Schools Rugby 7’s Competition, held at Alpine Energy Stadium in Timaru.

On Saturday the Roncalli Girls Under 15 and Under 19 teams took part in their tournament. After a tough round robin of games, the Under 19 team managed to notch a win against the Christchurch Girls High School B team, finishing the day on a high with a solid victory. A big thanks to former student and Roncalli College rugby player Issy McKeown who coached this side and Deb Waldron for helping to manage.

The Under 15 Girls team came up against some strong competition throughout the day, losing their pool games against some much bigger opposition, and finished with a close loss to Craighead 28-30. Both Roncalli Girls teams showed great improvement throughout the day and played with lots of spirit and commitment. Thank you to the coaches and managers Joseteki Veikune, Craig Miller, and Grant George for giving up your time to help out this team.

The Under 15 Roncalli Boys team played their tournament on Sunday, and started the day with some very strong showings to sweep through their pool undefeated, on the way dispatching sides from Opihi College, Otago Boys High School and St Andrews College. The team were then drawn to play a strong Christchurch Boys High School side in the cup semifinal, going down to this team 35-7. CBHS went on to win the tournament, with Roncalli being the only team to score a try against them. In the final game of the day Roncalli played Otago Boys again in the 3rd and 4th place playoff. Roncalli backed up their earlier form to finish with the third place bronze medal. This was a fantastic achievement for our team to come third and a big thank you to Joe Kotobalavu for coaching this side and his whanau for helping with the management of the team. The boys learnt a lot and played some fantastic attacking rugby throughout the day and can be very proud of this outstanding result. 

The bronze medal winning Under 15 Roncalli 7’s team: 

Back Row: Joe Kotobalavu (Coach), Josh Gallagher, Rhys Stevens, William Laing, George Clark, Homai Tamaiparea, Allimau Fiso, Jed Mckerrow, Liam Greene (Assistant to the Manager).

Front row: RJ Kotobalavu (Assistant Manger), Kaleb Kotobalavu (Manager), TK Waqaliti (Medic) Ifalemi Paongo, Nicholas Tarrant, Cameron King, Maika Mason, Matthew Cairns, Michael Kotobalavu (Hydration Technician)