Coach: Hawke’s Bay kids favourites to win Bangkok International 10s youth rugby tournament

Coach Richard Kupa's Junior Pacific Warriors rugby team is set to compete in the Bangkok International 10s tournament. Photo / Paul Taylor

It has been a long road of fundraising for a group of families to get their kids from Hawke’s Bay to the Bangkok International Rugby Sevens tournament, where they will be playing in the competition’s first Kids Rugby 10s tournament.

Under the Pacific Warriors Club, Central Hawke’s Bay coach Richard Kupa has been taking men’s sevens teams over to Bangkok, teams who have a reputation of winning almost every time they attended the tournament, but that all stopped when Covid hit.

Now the tournament is back up and running, Kupa decided to put together a mixed team of girls and boys and “give some local kids a chance to tour overseas”.

Kupa asked David Adamson, the Bangkok sevens tournament director and the man who helped form the Pacific Warriors Club along with Lote Raikabula in 2009, if he could bring a kids team to Bangkok.

Adamson said yes, because the Pacific Warriors Club was started to give young men who were on the fringes of professional rugby an opportunity to travel overseas and be part of a touring group away from their families, so Kupa thought “why not do that for the Hawke’s Bay kids?”

The kids Kapu picked to go over and play are a special team because, while they are talented players, they were hand-picked for their behaviour and attitudes.

Kupa explained, “I chose to take kids away that are good kids, nice kids that have manners and respect the values we are building.”

As a coach, the CHB man spends a lot of time dealing with values first and foremost, not the actual sport, and said, “It’s all the off-the-field stuff that’s a constant focus and then the rugby will come, but these kids are talented anyway.

“The biggest thing that stands out to me is they are very lovely kids, they are really nice and respectful, which is the first thing we talked about when organising the team. We are not looking for the best of the best but players that were going to be grateful for the experience,” Kupa said.

In Bangkok the team will be playing various countries and while in the past Kupa said a wide range of countries would take part, after Covid not everyone has come back and it looks like most teams will be from Asian nations.

“No matter what countries we play against, the tournament has always been about everyone being in another country and experiencing another culture and language,” Kupa said.

Getting closer to the trip the kids are all “so excited” to be going, and all but one have managed to afford to have a parent come with them.

The kids and their families had to fundraise for the whole trip, besides a few big team sponsors pitching in for uniforms and sports gear, which Kupa is grateful for.

“Each kid and their family put in so much hard work as they had to fundraise just under $3000 in two months.

“That meant people weren’t coughing up their own money, they all went out and found ways to fundraise to get the kids over,” Kupa said.

While the coach agrees with people who say that is a lot of money to play only rugby, he believes the bigger picture is the kids getting out of New Zealand and experiencing overseas travel and everything that goes along with it.

Flying out on November 8, the trip itself is rather short because the team is back on November 15, with only Friday to Monday in Thailand. The team will be playing all day Saturday and Sunday, leaving them with two rest days in between travel.

The kids will be at the sports ground from 7am to 7pm each day, playing rugby 10s and getting to watch the adults sevens, who will be playing their tournament at the same time.

On their days off the kids will have time to relax, and Kupa plans to take the group to a local temple, and hopes to check out one of Bangkok’s big malls.

Everyone is excited and coach Kupa believes his team is in with a really good shot at winning.

He even told his friend and tournament organiser, Adamson, “I think this team is going to clean up.” However, Adamson clapped back and said he has a few Thai teams he thinks have a shot.