Touch: Te Arawa seek home glory

The Te Arawa men's touch team will challenge for a national title this weekend. Pictured are team members (clockwise from back right) Joshua Taylor, Shaquille Stone, Maurice Stone Jnr, Damian Darlington, Ngarohi McGarvey-Black and Vernon Johnson. Photo / Ben Fraser

The Te Arawa men's touch team will look to turn their home field advantage into a national title.

The Maori National Touch Tournament will be held in Rotorua for the first time tomorrow and Sunday.

The popular tournament has been hosted by Tainui, in Hamilton, for the past 16 years but is in Rotorua for the first time this year after Te Arawa Touch won the bid to host.

Thousands of players and supporters from across New Zealand and Australia will attend the tournament.

Te Arawa men's team co-coach Maurice Stone said his 15-man side only had their first run together in preparation for the tournament last night.

But he said most of the players had played together in the past and had a good foundation as a team.

"Most of the boys have played together over the years and for these guys they are pretty sharp, most of them," he said.

Stone said his team made up the bulk of the Bay of Plenty men's representative touch side and had plenty of potential.

Last year they made the final of the men's open division and finished runners-up.

"By holding it here in Te Arawa it does mean a little bit more," he said. "Our goal is to try and win it ... we want to put on a good display."

Many of the players are ex-Rotorua Boys' High School students who have come from all over the country to attend the tournament.

There are also four current Boys' High players, all of who were part of the the sevens team which won the national secondary schools sevens title last weekend.

Sixty teams will compete this weekend at the big event representing iwi (tribes), hapu (sub-tribes), waka (ancestral canoes), marae and takiwa (regional boundaries).

The grades are: over-30 mixed, open men, open women, open mixed, under-21 men, under-21 women, under-21 mixed, under-16 boys and under-16 girls.

Event co-organiser Manu Soloman said it was a big deal to host the tournament in Rotorua.

"This event is more than just a sports tournament providing competition - it aims to increase Maori participation in touch and increase Maori representation at national level, but also to help with the development of coaches, referees and administrators," she said.

"It's fantastic to have the tournament back in Rotorua."

*The Te Arawa men's touch team: Maurice Stone Jnr, Shaquille Stone, Jazz Inia-McGarvey, Jared Tauiwi, Carlos Savage, Ngarohi McGarvey-Black, Damian Darlington, Isaac Te Aute, Joshua Taylor, Dylan Irihei, Kimo Houltham, Hirini Houia, Jake Tautari, Ranginui Thomas, Sasu Wihapi.