Sacred Heart Girls' College wins Waikato secondary school rugby title

After losing to Hamilton Girls' High School 144-0 last year, just 18 months on Hamilton's Sacred Heart Girls' College beat Girls' High 24-20 to take out the Waikato Secondary School Girls 1st XV competition.

Sacred Heart's director of sport development Mark McAlley said Hamilton Girls' High School has been seen as the benchmark for not only Waikato secondary school girls' rugby, but also on a national scale given their numerous national titles.

"That makes this win even more remarkable," McAlley said.

The first try in the match went to Sacred Heart's flying winger Titietasi Sami as she finished off a nice backline movement down the sideline, with Nina Trumm converting the try.

Similar play soon resulted in Titietasi scoring again between the posts, followed by another successful conversion, taking Sacred Heart into the halftime break with a 14-10 lead.

Early in the second half Dhanya King scored in the corner to boost Sacred Heart's buffer to 19-10. However, Girls' High fought back into the match with two good tries to gain the lead 20-19.

Sacred Heart weren't done though, and on the back of strong ball running, excellent support and gritty determination, Dhanya King scored again in the corner to close out the victory.

"It was an incredibly high-quality game played by two talented teams," McAlley said.

"I'm immensely proud of our team and the hard work they've put in over the past 18 months to improve as much as they have.

"I've seen them ignite their passion for the game and really come together and work well as a team."

McAlley said he, coach Ian Hauraki, manager Jude Trumm and the team had focused on getting the foundations of the game right before targeting wins.

"For us it's very much been about progress, not perfection. And that's paid off. A win of this scale in a game against a side as formidable as Hamilton Girls' High is outstanding."

The team would have gone on to play the country's top four girls' teams as representatives of the Chiefs rugby region, however, given the impacts of Covid-19 that won't happen this year.

Wayne Maxwell, who is the head of game development for female rugby in the Waikato Rugby Union's high-performance team, presented the cup to the team.