The Southland Boys' High School Touch Rugby team headed to the New Zealand Secondary School Touch Championships in Rotorua.

On Thursday 7 December, 14 students travelled to Rotorua for the New Zealand Secondary School Touch Championships. A mix of Year 10 (2), 11 (2), 12 (3) and 13's (7) left on the 1pm flight to Auckland then on to Rotorua and the warmth of humidity!

Our first 3 games were on Friday, with 4 on Saturday, and the semis and finals on Sunday. First we played Rotorua Boys' High School, who, although they had the home-based advantage, we beat 6:5. We then played  Palmerston North Boys', with a win of 7:5. Spirits were high! We then played Tauranga Boys' for our last game of the day, with another win 9:8.

The following day saw us play Christchurch Boys' High School with a draw of 4:4, and then we were off to meet Kings, one of our interschool rivals. A loss, our first, 6:8 and they happened to be next to our tent as well, so a little bit of banter! St Bedes from Christchurch were our 3rd game of the day. Hot and tired, but in good spirits, we saw another loss 2:4. Onwards and upwards, we played Otago Boys' High, another interschool favourite. Otago was fast, and we had an excellent defence, but another loss, 5:6 to end the day. 

On the Sunday, we played Nelson College with a convincing win 10:5 - our biggest lead yet. We were to play for 5th and 6th place but weren’t sure who - then it was announced we would play Otago Boys High again. It was on! However, a 4:7 loss to them saw us place 6th out of 21 boys’ teams - 81 teams in the whole competition - and with great enthusiasm we sprinted off the field, boots and touch kit still on, into the rental vehicles for the 15 min drive to the airport and to our Invercargill flight home 20 mins later.

To Liam Howley and Scott Eade, thank you for being awesome coaches for all the time and training you put into the boys. Thank you to the team for representing the school - with the furthest distance to travel - so well!