Whanganui High School place seventh in NZ Secondary Schools Touch Tournament

Whanganui High School finished top 8 in the NZ Secondary School Touch Tournament.

Whanganui High School’s mixed touch rugby team has placed seventh out of 43 schools at the national secondary schools touch tournament.

The young side beat Rangiora High School in the seventh-place final last weekend with a high-scoring 10-8 after being behind by two at halftime.

Their seventh place built on their results of the past couple of seasons, when they finished 22nd in 2022 and 11th in 2023.

Sean Brown, who has coached the team since 2010, was pleased with his side’s improvement over the past few years.

“Where we finished was about right. Making the top eight was our goal so to do that was fantastic,” Brown said.

The Whanganui side started the tournament with a flurry by comfortably beating Te Paepae o Aotea, Paeroa College and Bethlehem College.

They then went down 5-8 to Manukura, who went on to place fifth.

A win over Whakatipu High School in the preliminary finals was dampened by a loss to the eventual champions of the mixed grade, Mahurangi College.

They also lost to Kaipara College 6-7 in the semifinal, with Brown saying the “team didn’t turn up that morning”, before finishing with a win over Rangiora High School.

“The team showed a lot of character. That was a pleasing finishing to the tournament,” he said.

Brown said the ending was bittersweet as he knew that was the last time five of his team, who had been in the side for a long time, would play for the school.

“I was happy with the result, but [it was] quite sobering because there’s some players that have been in there for the last five years; there was some great seniors,” he said.

The players leaving are Te Ari Paranihi, Tyrone Lama, Teresa Rennie, Carrie Rennie and Izzy Webster.

Despite this, Brown was confident his side would be up there next year.

“There’s a lot of talent in the team. It won’t be a rebuild phase, it’ll be a competition phase – top four is realistic.”

The team still had Year 9 Haizley Koro and Year 10 Hinehou Kingi To Koari as well as NZ girls under-18 player Nevaeh Blake and the rest of the side to build with.

Brown, a former Touch Black, led Whanganui High School to NZ Secondary Schools victory in 2015 and 2016 after being runners-up the previous two years.

He said the touch rugby landscape had changed significantly compared to when he was playing.

“There’s a lot more exposure to quality touch, these kids are more exposed to high-level footage, there’s more tournaments to play in. In terms of the play, a lot of the younger ones are starting to learn more at a younger age.

“The stuff that the 14-year-olds know, we were like 19, 20, so they’re learning a lot more quickly.

“The IQ level across the kids is much higher than when it was in our day.”

He was pleased to see how the sport has grown over time.

“It’s great to see more participation – national events back in those days would have only had around 16 teams,” he said.