On the 12th of August, Rāroa managed to sneak in an exchange with Wellesley College. It was an away exchange with the teams travelling to Fraser Park and Wellesley College.

 The games were played in great spirits and Rāroa took the exchange 4-1. We would like to thank Wellesley for hosting us and look forward to having them come and play at Rāroa next year! Check out the write ups for each of the teams below.

1st XI Hockey

On the 12th of August the Rāroa hockey team made their way to Fraser park to play against Wellesley for the annual Wellesley exchange. They welcomed us by singing a waiata and then it was straight into the warm ups. Finally it was time for the game to start. We kicked the game off with the pass back, immediately we got the ball into the semicircle and nearly scored a goal in the first minute. We were dominating for the start of the first half but then that changed. They had all the possession of the ball. We were constantly defending and we never even got a chance to attack.”Half time!” We were saved by the whistle. Half time couldn't have been better, we needed time to regroup. The second half started and we immediately stole the ball. We had possession for almost the whole half but in the last ten minutes we had a breakaway. Our right wing was darting down the field; he crossed it into the circle and Lucas tapped it in. He had scored! It was 1-0 and there was less than 5 minutes left. We kept possession and kept the ball in their half. The whistle was blown and we had won.

1st XI Hockey

Alexa Inglis, Finn Fraser, Boston Spray, Kishan Kumar, Leo Bridgman, Zac Bridgman, Lucas Jaine, George Robiony-Rogers, Quentin Keller, Logan Keith, Jesse Mexted, Freddie Wragg, Lachlan Barry

1st XV Rugby

On Thursday, the 1st XV rugby team went out to Wellesley College to play in the 2021 Wellesley exchange. The match started with an early converted try from Wellesley to open up the score. We didn’t give up but soon after another converted try was scored. Our heads slowly started dropping as our defence couldn’t handle the pressure of Wellesley and rapidly more tries were scored. Towards the end of the half we started getting some forward momentum but it wasn't enough to get a try as the half time whistle sounded with the score at 40-0. The second half started and we were determined to come back knowing rugby was a game of two halves. The half started strong with a knock on off kickoff which gave us an opportunity to get back early but from the scrum we were driven back leading to a penalty against us. We then let in more tries which damaged our confidence. Shortly after we got some forward momentum but their defence was not budging. Whilst we had some go forward, we carelessly gave the ball away leading to many more tries against us. Yet again, towards the end of the game we were going forward but we didn't manage to score. The game finished and we took a massive defeat with the final score being 92-0. We have all played enough sports to know that sometimes you get beaten by a much better team and today was certainly a case of that. We walked to the locker room with our heads held high laughing and joking with one another.

1st XV

AJ Searancke. Bobby Cronin-Stone, Cade Major, Caleb Rawiri, Freddy Williams, George Roach, Jared Kamau, Jaxton Mato, Mason Su’a, Max Hodge, Ollie Sharland, Riley Kennedy, Sam Rix, Sam Thurlow, Tom Phillips, Tyson McGahan, Coby Dixon, Zaqueo Tijerina, Zion Berwick, Jack McPhail

1st XI Football

On Tuesday the 12th of August the Redhawks football team alongside some other sports teams from Rāroa headed to face Wellesley in an exchange. I’m Lachy and I played in the XI football game. All of us pre-game were pretty excited by the fact that we just had a changing room but as well as that we got to play on one of the best turfs in Wellington. Finally it was kick off time and it was a little bit of a slow start as Wellesley applied a lot of pressure. We held on though and scored our first goal which was headed in the back of the net by a Wellesley player. We continued to stand strong and in went our second. Zach did a good job driving the ball into the box and made it really easy for Jett just to tap in as Jett ran round players to jump into the gap for the pass. During the game I was pretty impressed with the team work and passion everyone gave to win. Personally I think we all played exceptionally well and that was mentioned greatly in our half time talk. At half time it was 2-0 and we were amped to get on and do it again. Our second half wasn’t as successful as we would have hoped, missing a few chances, losing tackles, even conceding a goal in the last 10 minutes. But that all changed as Zach struck the ball right into the top right corner over the keeper. Although the overall score would have sounded better without a goal against us we still took the win back to Raroa and the team did awesome.

1st XI

Ryan Bateson, Matias Colon-Rivera, Caleb Gray, Luke Moyle, Harry Moyle, Eddy Pope, Sean Martinsen, Emmet McMahon, Conor Rook, Jett Allan, Lachlan Joe, Zach Benson, Bradley Kilburn, Thomas Wilkinson

2nd XI Football

The 2nd XI got there in time for a 30min warm up. Everyone was pumped and ready to go. I'm Zach from the seconds team and to start off I was playing left wing. Even though it was a sixty minute game everything seemed to go quite fast, but I started off by scoring the first goal with an assist from Sam Jones. Everyone was happy because we were only about two minutes in and we already had a goal lead. We went on playing the first half pretty well because by half time it was five nil to us. We got into the second half happy - we had a good lead and then we extended that lead. Every five minutes we seemed to score another goal. At least half the team got a goal and I got a hattrick. At the end of the game it was eleven - two to us and everyone was stoked we had won by such a high score. We had a player of the day for their team who was a very effective defender and then they gave the player of the day to Sam from our team because he scored about two or three goals and made lots of good assists. We went back to the changing room and got all our stuff but we had to rush a little to catch the bus. We got on the bus and had a long ride back, but we were all happy to have won.

2nd XI

Sam Jones, Hamish Patchell, Keaton Seymour, Zach Graham, Orion D’Silva, Archie Domaneschi, Oliver Spinks, Kiaran Parsons, Yenul Rathnayake, Aidan Rook, Jarod Wysoczanski, Lukasz Mojsa, Nikhil Ranchord, Ashford Dickson, Wilton McKenzie

3rd XI Football

Mr Price blows the whistle and it’s off. Wellesley 3rd’s vs Rāroa 3rd’s. Hi, I’m Sam Thomas and I competed in the Wellesley exchange for the 3rd football team. We had at least 15 minutes to warm up, then Mr Price told us our positions and we were off. There was a lot of back and forth until we had a breakaway. Leo was running down the wing, he sent it in the middle to Roman and he scored into the bottom corner. 1 hour later and we scored the last goal. Everyone was having a shot on goal but Rugman got the perfect chance to put into the back of the net, and put in the back of the net he did! Just after that goal, Mr Price blew the final whistle for a comfortable win to Rāroa.

3rd XI

Leo Sullivan, Devesh Singh, Rugman Kulam, Roman Anderson, Taylor Hart, Sam Thomas, Andy Cao, Jack Anderson, Duncan McGarry, Joshua Kinsella, Alex Waggott, Luca Lavigne, Arlo Crookston, Wil Snarski