The ban on Year 14s follows a heated special general meeting of the New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association. Photo / Photosport
By Dana Johannsen, RNZ
Rowing officials have banned the controversial practice of Year 14 students competing at the Maadi Regatta, eliminating what one Auckland principal described as a “black mark” on New Zealand secondary school sport’s biggest event.
Concerns about a small number of schools which allowed students to return to row in the national championships after completing their final year of high school have dogged the sport for decades.
Critics claim it points to a “win at all costs” mentality that pervades the prestigious event, which had become a marketing tool for elite schools.
The ban on Year 14s follows a heated special general meeting of the New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association (NZSSRA) in November last year, during which a majority of principals backed a vote of no confidence in the organisation’s leadership.
The call for the vote, which was carried 36-4 with seven members abstaining, came amid growing frustration among high school principals over what they perceived as indifference from the NZSSRA in stamping out “abuse of the system”.
“There were a group of us who wanted to see change, and we were frustrated,” said Auckland’s St Peter’s College principal James Bentley.
“It has been a black mark over the sport for some time, which [RNZ] identified in [its reporting] last year.”
Students returning for a sixth year of high school to row in the Maadi Regatta was one of several “ethically dubious” practices highlighted in a 2024 RNZ investigation.
The stand-off between the principals and the NZSSRA was resolved when the governing body agreed to put forward a remit to change the eligibility rules at a second SGM last month.
At that meeting, the schools overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Year 14 ban, with 72 in favour and 14 against.
In a statement, the NZSSRA confirmed the new eligibility rules will take effect for this year’s Maadi Regatta, which is being held at Lake Karāpiro, Cambridge, in March.
The organisation added the result was “a strong message from principals ... about this subject”.
The rule change has also received widespread support on the ground, with several high school coaches spoken to by RNZ describing the move as long overdue.
Dale Maher, head coach at St Bede’s College in Christchurch, said while only a few Year 14 students rowed in the Maadi Regatta each year, it had an outsized impact on the competition.
He said that given rowing was a late development sport, with most youth rowers not picking up an oar until they reached high school, the extra year of endurance training gave those athletes a “substantial advantage”.
“As long as I have been coaching high school kids it has been an issue or a sore point for many, and has been defended vigourously by others,” said Maher, who had been coaching at secondary school level since 1998.
“I think it just got to the point where there’s been a few too many contentious things happening around high school rowing over the last few years, so it’s been brought back to the principals' attention and the opportunity has been taken to get it cleared up.”
The Year 14 ban comes after multiple attempts over the past two decades to stamp out the practice.
In the mid-2000s, the NZSSRA changed the upper age classification for the regatta from Under-19 to Under-18 in a bid to address the rise of students returning to school for rowing glory.
However, that still left a loophole for Year 14 students with “lucky birthdays” – those under 18 as of January 1 – which had continued to be exploited over the years.
In 2022, a group of Christchurch coaches, including Tony O’Connor, who guided the New Zealand men’s eight to gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games, wrote to Sport New Zealand, Rowing New Zealand and School Sport New Zealand to express their concerns about the practice. The letter did not prompt any policy change.
The issue once again gained momentum last year after Hamilton Boys’ High School took out both the Maadi Cup – the trophy awarded to the top boys eights crew – and the boys Under-18 coxed four title, with a Year 14 student in their crew.
The student, who was a member of Rowing NZ’s junior programme, had been provisionally accepted on scholarship to a US College for the 2024/25 year, contingent on meeting additional academic requirements.
Bentley said media attention during last year’s regatta prompted a lot of discussion between school principals across the country, and a decision was made to call an SGM and push the NZSSRA for change.
“We actually thought it would be relatively straightforward if a group of principals got together and went to [NZSSRA], and said ‘look, this is what we’d like to see happen’,” he said.
“But there were quite a few roadblocks in place with their process and their constitution, and so we had to work through that, which took quite a long time, a lot longer than we thought. In fact it was quite tortuous.”
According to the minutes of the November 8 meeting, members were informed by NZSSRA president Mark Cotham that under the organisation’s constitution, rule changes could only be put forward every four years.
The constitution required that any remit to alter the rules and regulations needed to be put forward, and deemed necessary by the organisation’s Schools Committee, before they could be accepted out of the four-year cycle.
The heated discussion that followed was summed up in the minutes as “principals expressed a range of sentiments, which led to a call for a vote of no confidence in the NZSSRA”.
The motion was led by Tim O’Connor, headmaster of Auckland Grammar School.
“For us it was important that [the NZSSRA] understood how seriously we were taking this matter,” O’Connor said.
“We were urging them to understand that actually the majority of principals across the country had already discussed this change and it is for the betterment of the sport, and if they weren’t prepared to actually listen and go through due processes, then there are other means, aren’t there?”
Despite the motion passing, the board of the NZSSRA did not stand down. O’Connor said the situation was de-escalated when the governing body proposed a solution to put forward a remit to change the eligibility rules at a second SGM in January.
O’Connor said the initial lack of urgency from the NZSSRA in addressing the Year 14 issue appeared to be borne from the sentiment that given only a small bracket of students returned each year, it was not a major concern.
“Our view was you’re dead right, there is only a small number, but that’s the exact point, we actually need to be reviewing whether this group should be rowing,” he said.
The principals group were also frustrated that the NZSSRA was working off “incorrect information”.
A “Year 14 Impact Assessment” compiled by the association for School Sport NZ noted its research found “no significant advantage accruing to students through experience after second year”.
“We had to point out to them that Rowing NZ’s chief physiologist had said, quite clearly, that the increase in technical ability and muscle coordination required does give a very distinct advantage to a fifth-year rower,” O’Connor said.
The data contained in the impact assessment was also incorrect, according to O’Connor, as the association did not capture what year level participants in the Maadi Regatta are at, due to the classification being based on age group. The discussion document therefore could only cite “known examples”.
Beyond the purported competitive advantage, critics also questioned the ethics of the practice, arguing that there were “no valid educational reasons” for students to do Year 14. In many cases, the students did not see out the full school year.
However, in defending the inclusion of a Year 14 rower in the Hamilton Boys’ High School crews last year, former headmaster Susan Hassall told RNZ that for students heading off to the US on college scholarships, their placement offers were often contingent on satisfying additional academic requirements.
“We don’t enrol students to row, I feel very strongly that it’s unethical to enrol students or to encourage students to come to your school just for a sport. And it frustrates me that other schools do that,” Hassall said in February 2024. Hassall retired in April last year after 25 years in charge of the country’s biggest boys’ school.
Under the new rules introduced, the door is still slightly ajar for schools to field Year 14 rowers in a crew. To do so, schools must apply for an exemption for the student, which will be assessed by an independent panel of principals.
Bentley said he believed the test for dispensation to be granted needed to be robust.
He pointed out that it was not only about fairness of competition, but the impact it had on other students.
“What people need to remember when you have a Year 14 rower, and what is so often forgotten about, is the student who gets knocked out of the boat, and loses their opportunity,” he said.
“Those negative experiences, they really stick with people.”
Clarification: This story was updated to reflect that the year 14 student at Hamilton Boys' High School had been provisionally accepted on scholarship to a US College, contingent on meeting additional academic requirements.