At the end of Term 4 last year, our top Touch team went to the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Championship, held at Rotorua International Stadium from 9-12 December.

The team played four games on the first day, beating Auckland Grammar 5-4, New Plymouth Boys' 8-5 and Te Puke High 10-1. The last game of the day was against eventual silver medalists Hamilton Boys', who beat us 5-7.

On the second day we started with a 9-1 win over Marlborough College and followed that with a close win over Otago Boys' 5-4. The team then beat Southland Boys' 4-2 and King’s High School 9-5.

This put us into the semi-finals on the last day of the tournament. Unfortunately, we stumbled against Hamilton Boys', going down 3-9. This put us into the bronze playoff, which we lost to King’s High School 5-6.

The overall placing of fourth in New Zealand is the highest a St Bede’s Touch team has ever achieved. Given that this year the team has only lost four Year 13s out of a squad of 16, the team can look forward to this year’s competitions with some confidence.

For the tournament, the Most Valuable Player for our team was Maddox Wright and the Player of the Tournament was Ethan O’Donovan.

Harry Hough (Year 12) and Lucas Romero (Year 11) also attended as referees and both did the college proud with their achievements with the whistle.

The coaching and management of Leanne Wright and Harrison Kirk were the driving forces that enabled the boys to achieve so highly. At the tournament, 2021 Head Boy and New Zealand Touch rep Jackson Wright also made a valuable contribution to the coaching team.

The team was Cooper Siave, Alex Schupbach, Ethan O’Donovan, Reuben Ngariki, Caleb Stevens, George Kneebone, LaDanian Davis, Maddox Wright, Lochie McLean, Kyle Peterson, Josh Cusin, Tom Robertson, Finn O’Kane, Lachie Bartram, Ollie Monks, and Jamayne Feast (Captain).

As an aside, seven of our team represented Canterbury at the provincial age group championships on 3-4 February this year. Ethan O’Donovan and George Kneebone were in the Canterbury U16 team, which came fifth. Ethan captained the team. Reuben Ngariki, Caleb Stevens, Tom Robertson, LaDanian Davis and Maddox Wright were in the U18 team which came fourth.

Maddox has also been selected for the Canterbury Men’s Open team, which will compete in the National Provincial Championships on the weekend of 8-10 March.