By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE
Soccer has become the most popular sport for young New Zealanders. Rugby, the national game, is now number two.
The two codes have always attracted 5- to 17-year-olds in fairly even numbers, but new Hillary Commission research shows around 114,000 of our youngsters regularly play soccer. About 99,500 favour rugby union.
It is the first time such figures have been gathered.
The balance is tipped by the increasing number of girls who prefer to dribble a round ball, rather than kick an oval one. Fewer girls are drawn to the physical contact of rucks, scrums and tackles.
Cricket rates third in popularity, with 92,400 players aged under 17, and netball comes in fourth with 71,000.
Youngsters who play sport at school, in clubs or with friends and families are covered in the random survey.
Official figures for registered players around the country are lower, says Hillary Commission spokesman John Boyd.
Soccer is a regular sport for 16 per cent of all young New Zealanders. Seventy per cent of those who play it are boys. Rugby attracts 14 per cent of young people.
"People think we are a rugby-mad nation, but there is no doubt about it - more young people are playing soccer," Mr Boyd says. "Yet to suggest that this is bad news for rugby would be way off the mark."
The codes switch places for players over 18 years old, with rugby rating as New Zealand's ninth most popular sport and soccer 12th.
In the lead is golf, a game both sexes can play into old age.
The small ball is also on a roll with the nation's youth. Mr Boyd says 50,000 primary school children are being taught golf as part of the physical education programme.
A lot depends on what's hot and what's not. When successful teams and individual champions get exposure, youngsters want to emulate their heroes.
Sometimes the sport they enjoy may have to do with where they live and who motivates them.
At coeducational Otumoetai College in Tauranga, volleyball far outrates soccer or rugby among the 1400 students. Physical education department head Sandra Boubee says kids gravitate to teachers and coaches with expertise and enthusiasm. Parental encouragement and involvement is another deciding factor.
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