New Zealand Youth Handball Team

In December last year, Isaac Tili and I (Jack Waterworth) were lucky enough to travel to Tahiti with the New Zealand Youth Handball team to compete in the IHF Trophy Oceania Qualifying Tournament.

 

The trip started with a stopover in Auckland where we had a last training to make final tweaks and revise our strategies and plays. During the stopover in Auckland, we visited the All Blacks Experience. This showed us what it is like to represent our country and gave us inspiration for what was to come. We were also lucky enough to get a talk from All Blacks legend Michael Jones about the honour and responsibility of wearing the black jersey.

 

The following day we flew to Papeete, Tahiti where we stayed at a boarding school hostel.

 

Our performance at the tournament got off to a flying start with a 40-goal win over American Samoa. Following this we had a tight encounter with New Caledonia, losing by 7 goals. We finished second in our group which gave us the tough task of playing Tahiti in the semi-final. In what was the most memorable game of the tournament for me, we beat Tahiti to book a place in the final! Unfortunately, we were outplayed in the final by the very strong New Caledonia team.

 

Isaac and I were incredibly happy to receive a silver medal. After the tournament, we were lucky to have two days to explore and enjoy Tahiti. On one of these days, we went on a boat tour of the island enjoying a BBQ lunch and snorkelling with the wildlife like stingrays.

 

Isaac and I are so grateful for this opportunity and we both learnt an incredible amount from the experience. Thank you to everyone who supported us!

 

Written by Jack Waterworth