"The weather was shocking in Wellington on Monday night," 18-year-old Albert said yesterday. "I was pretty happy with the way I played and both Hayden and Alex played mean games too."
The Hurricanes U-18 team is based on a long tradition, and has been selected from all age-eligible players from the eight provincial unions aligned to the club.
The first Central Regions Schools team (the forerunner of the Hurricanes U-18 team) was formed 35 years ago in 1979, where it played and defeated an English Schools team at Athletic Park.
A New Zealand Secondary Schools Regional Tournament was established in 1986 and teams played for the Barbarian Shield, which the Hurricanes won in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, before losing it to the Blues in the final year of the competition in 2011.
The U-18 team also played the Australian Secondary Schools team in 2006 and 2008, winning both matches.
The team was reformed last year, playing a one-off fixture against the Chiefs U-18 selection in Taupo.
Last week this year's Hurricanes intake took part in a gruelling camp in Feilding, where they were drilled, analysed, and educated on the game of rugby.
Albert said the camps and one-off matches were a valuable part of his development and he was keen to stay with the franchise and help repay the substantial investment the club had made.
"The Hurricanes put up of a lot of money up to help develop us and I'm keen to stay on. I'm in my last year at Collegiate and depending on my exam results I'll be looking at university, although I'm still figuring out what I want to do for a career.
"Rugby will play a big part of my life, but for now I'll concentrate on playing well for the school and hope I get selected for the New Zealand secondary schools team at the end of this year," Albert said.
Collegiate's initial focus will be on the remaining games in the Central North Island secondary school competition where it is currently sitting fifth of eight and then a series of local inter-school derbies.
