My Account
It’s a game of two halves in local youth rugby this season, with record numbers of juniors signing up, but failure to field a first XV at one Coast college.
While Silverdale Seahawks has officially become the largest junior rugby club in New Zealand, with more than 700 registrations this year and rising, Whangaparāoa College has failed to muster a first XV for the first time since the school opened in 2005.
Principal James Thomas said it was unfortunate that the numbers weren’t there this season, but said there would be more players coming through for the future.
“We have encouraged our boys who want to play to join the Ōrewa College second XV, who play in the same 1C grade we won two years ago,” he said. “We have added a rugby youth 14 grade in 2021, so the future looks bright for rugby.”
He added that players could also opt for rugby league, and that overall, the number of students representing the college continued to grow. Other winter sports at the school include basketball, hockey, netball, lacrosse, water polo and football.
Mr Thomas pointed out that North Harbour Rugby Union had made many changes to its programme to address a drop in registered players in recent years, including the removal of representative rugby in junior grades, promotion of ripper rugby, non-competitive year 7 and 8 tournaments and a review of the weights and ages for schoolboy rugby, resulting in new grades being issued for 2021.
North Harbour Rugby chief executive Dave Gibson confirmed that college rugby was growing generally, with an increase in the number of teams in the 12-16 year boys age group up from 28 in 2020 to 33 this season, and the number of youth teams overall up from 71 last year to 90 teams in 2021.
Meanwhile, Silverdale’s junior rugby director Garrick Henderson was cock-a-hoop with the increase in Seahawks’ numbers.
“There is no doubt the growth in recent years of the Hibiscus Coast, Millwater and Milldale areas has provided a steady flow of new players,” he said. “But this takes a heck of a lot of organising and I must give credit to the junior committees who have had to manage, administer and coach these 700 juniors.”
Ex-pro player Mike “Willy” Wilson has joined the club as new junior administrator this year. He is no stranger to Silverdale, having played nearly 100 games for the premier team in the early 2000s, before playing professionally in Italy and France for 10 years.
The Seahawks’ popularity can occasionally present problems – just finding enough fields to play on every Saturday is a challenge. However, Henderson was not complaining and said he expected growth to continue.
