Area school students from around the country battled it out in a four-day sports tournament held in Whangarei over the school holidays earlier this month. Representative students competed in sports disciplines like netball, rugby, football, ki-o-rahi, basketball and volleyball.
Raglan Area School (RAS) had a number of students selected in the Central North Island teams for volleyball, basketball and football. These teams joined other students at the national sports tournament with teams representing Northland, top of South Island and south of South Regions area schools.
The four different regions went head-to-head in each discipline over the first three days with a North Island team and South Island team selected based on their performances during these games. The final day sees the the North and South Island teams challenge each other in a final game with a national team selected at the end of the tournament.
The Central North Island teams were coordinated by RAS deputy principal Quenten Browne and while the weather caused a number of last-minute changes, many of the Raglan students were successful in their campaigns for national selection.
“A team is always selected from the best players of the tournament for each sport. Aside from rugby they don’t usually get to play together but it is an honour and a big deal to the kids to be selected for the squads – and happily most of our players did well in this regard,” said Raglan Area School football coach Aaron Mooar.
“All our Rangatahi from RAS were a pleasure to hang out with at the tournament and a big shout-out is due to Matua Quenten who ran the Central North Island operation and coped fantastically with the surprise elements caused by the bad weather.
“I also want to say how proud I am of the girls from the RAS Senior girls team – they played with great spirit and left everyone in no doubt about the awesome talent pool we have here.” Said Aaron.
