Boys’ High haka honours Anzacs

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

GISBORNE Boys' High First 15 players were unlikely members of Anzac commemorations before the Chiefs and Hurricanes game on Saturday night.

Along with five other schools' first 15s, they had planned to surprise Chiefs halfback Brad Webber with a haka to thank him for coming in to speak to them during a training camp.

GBHS first 15 head coach Ryan Tapsell said no one apart from themselves had known going into the game that the performance was going to happen.

“The Chiefs didn't know. . . once it happened, the cameras came over.”

Video of the commemoration was put on the All Blacks' Youtube page, where it has amassed over 27,000 views since being posted three days ago.

The haka had been planned as both teams came onto the park, but when they saw that there would be an Anzac commemoration, they knew it should be performed at the end of the ceremony, said organiser Kahurangi Falaoa.

Falaoa is a member of the GBHS first 15 management team and was tasked with preparing the boys to perform the haka.

“I had to think about a haka they could all do. . . the challenge was getting six different schools' first 15s together.

“For them to come together and do it as one says a lot about our society.”

It was purely coincidental that the haka they had planned to perform was about the soldiers, but he said the dual meaning of the haka “was fitting” for the occasion.