Rangataua win Baywide junior rugby title

Rangataua under-13 rugby team perform their haka before the Baywide Champion of Champions final. Photo / Drops Photography

Rugby is one of those sports where individual and team success begins at a young age.

Boys start playing the game aged 5 and often grow up through the grades playing with the same core group of mates.

It is one of the things that makes playing sport so enjoyable.

This year was the last season for hundreds of under-13-grade players throughout Bay of Plenty to play together, before they disperse to join secondary school teams next year.

For the Rangataua Sports Under-13 team their last game together was against Opotiki in the Baywide Champion of Champions final held last month at Gordon Spratt Reserve in Papamoa.

They made it a day to remember as the Rangataua boys won to clinch the title.

"Great teams are developed around a great culture," is one of the beliefs Rangataua head coach Tane Bennett instilled in the team this year, alongside fellow coaches Matua Parkinson and John Matehaere.

"To develop a great culture you need the most important ingredient - great people. We have been very fortunate this year to have a champion group of boys to work with," Bennett said.

"The boys are the most talented bunch of young men we have had the pleasure in coaching. When you get a group of boys who excel in more than one sport at this age you have a team of excellence."

The list of sporting skills in the Rangataua Under-13 squad may take some beating.

Bennett says they had a diverse range of young champions from many different backgrounds.

"This year we have had two under-14 NZ basketball representatives, a NZ BMX representative with a world ranking, two rugby league representatives, an under-13 surfing champion, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu regional representative, kapa haka national representatives combined with seven Tai Mitchell representatives, three Roller Mills representatives and four Bay Rugby under-13 representatives."

Harnessing all that talent and keeping the boys grounded was a key role for the coaches.

"One of the key values this year has been to stay humble. This has been reinforced all year with an impressive for-and-against points record with the team being undefeated all season," Bennett said.

"With the [Rangataua] club celebrating 110 years this year, the boys and the parents have the opportunity to celebrate at a special prize-giving event to be held at Maungatapu Marae this Saturday.

"The future of the club is in good stead."