Pupils revel in ancient sport

More than 100 schoolchildren battled for supremacy during the inaugural Wairarapa Ki-o-rahi Tournament played at Makoura College yesterday.

Ki-o-rahi is a pre-European Maori contact sport played with a small ball called a ki, says tournament organiser Marcus Howie, of Sport Wellington Wairarapa.

The fast-paced game features elements common to netball, Australian Rules, rugby union and touch rugby. Two teams play on a circular field divided into zones, and attempt to score points by touching boundary markers called pou and striking a central target called a tupu with the ki.

Mr Howie said the first Wairarapa tournament was held this week to recognise both Maori Language Week and the Maori New Year, or Matariki.

He said there were seven pou in the game that represent the cluster of seven stars known as the Pleiades, or Matariki, which first rise in southern skies in late May or early June, signalling the beginning of the Maori New Year.

Seven schools - Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Wairarapa, Opaki School, Douglas Park School, Kahutara School, Lakeview School, Carterton South End School and Chanel Intermediate - fielded 12 players for each game and opened their matches with a haka.

Chanel Intermediate won the tournament and walked away with a carved trophy donated by Nathan "Chopper" Couch, Masterton police constable and former Wairarapa-Bush player.

Lakeview School placed second, Mr Howie said, with Kahutara School third and Opaki School fourth.

Ki-o-rahi is played across New Zealand by both adults and children, Mr Howie said, after earlier being introduced and spread through Europe by the 28th Maori Battalion during World War II.

There is a national New Zealand contest for adults in the sport, which has been undergoing a resurgence in popularity at home since the late 1970s, he said.

Tournaments were also played in Auckland and Wellington and internationally in Italy and France, where a world cup in the sport is contested, Mr Howie said.

The tournament for primary schoolchildren partnered Sport Wellington Wairarapa, Whaiora Whanui and Rangitane o Wairarapa.