Hutt Intermediate celebrate their win. Photo / Supplied.
Excitement is brewing for students of Hutt Intermediate School’s flag football team, who will get the chance to represent New Zealand on the global stage next year.
The Wellington-based team came out on top in the 10-team nationals last month to book their place the 2026 Pro Bowl Games in California, where they get an all-expenses paid trip to compete against 17 other schools from around the globe.
While exact dates are to be finalised, the event is set to take place in San Francisco, days before the city hosts Super Bowl LX.
Hutt Intermediate lost their first game, before bouncing back to beat Auckland’s Te Atatū Intermediate School 28-0 in the final.
Their coach and teacher Rory McJorrow said the kids are super excited to compete.
“It’s pretty amazing for the kids,” McJorrow said. ”I’m pretty stoked with them.
“I’ve already sent a message and emailed my favourite NFL team [the Los Angeles Chargers], trying to get the kids some swag.
“I haven’t heard a response back, but they’re going to be provided some New Zealand kits, which is really exciting.”
The top two teams in the Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington, Northland and Waikato/Bay of Plenty regions advanced to the national finals.
For McJorrow, it’s an exciting opportunity, having been involved with the sport for six years. That started with playing with friends at the park before discovering there was a local tournament and he decided to join his local club, the Hutt Valley Spartans.
But when he saw a competition for school kids and the potential rewards, it was something he wanted to be a part of.
“I ran a programme just for fun and we’d just muck around and pushed it and introduced it, but then when I saw this competition and this prize, I was like we can’t sit back and not do this,” McJorrow said.
“We just had to continue to play and just have a lot of fun with the kids.”
While it might be exciting for McJorrow, making the trip over isn’t so straightforward as he has to make some important changes to ensure he’s on the plane.
“I have to come home a couple of days early because otherwise it would clash with my wedding,” McJorrow said. “My fiancé has been very supportive and wants me to be part of the journey.”
The NFL Flag programme is offered to primary and secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand. It’s the non-contact version of American Football, where players wear flag belts to replace the act of tackling. It is five-a-side and the teams are of mixed gender.
The New Zealand NFL national school competition started in 2023 but was limited to only 12 Auckland and Wellington teams in a pilot programme. It has since grown to over 60 schools across the country, reaching more than 12,000 students.
Overall participation numbers in New Zealand have taken a massive jump in 2025, with 46,000 people playing the sport.
Charlotte Offord, the general manager of NFL Australia and New Zealand said she expects those numbers to grow over the coming years, with the sport set to debut at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
“We continue to think that we’ll ... see a lot of expansion ... in flag across New Zealand over the next couple of years,” Offord said.
“The more opportunities that we can provide young athletes in the market to try a new sport, to have an opportunity to go to the US and play, but also kind of unlock future pathways for them as well.”
Adding to the desire to grow the sport Downunder has been the emergence of Sydney-born Samoan lineman Jordan Mailata of the Philadelphia Eagles, while Melbourne will host its first NFL match next year, with the Los Angeles Rams to face an unnamed opponent.
There are also plans to launch professional women’s and men’s flag leagues in the next two years and Offord is pushing hard to have the sport included at the 2032 Olympics, taking place in Brisbane.
“We’re going through the process right now to kind of try and get it to Brisbane in the future, so that young kids that are playing the game now will potentially have an opportunity to be Olympic athletes for their country in the future,” she said.
“Whether or not that is the case, I think we’ll still see dramatic growth in the sport. We are finding that kids are learning the basic levels of NFL by playing flag, in terms of the basic level of rules. That is then converting them into fans.”
Ben Francis is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.