MARIST NH RUGBY CLUB NEWS: NZ Marist Tour Update | Snow White Tournament Report | Senior & Junior Updates

NZ MARIST DEVELOPMENT TOUR UPDATE
Marist NH's Opeti Pasikala and his NZ Marist Development team have started their tour of the lower North Island. As the first New Zealand Marist Rugby team first played in Masterton in 1963, it is only fitting that the 2023 tour started there. They got their tour off to a great start with a 33-12 win over a strong Wairarapa Barbarians side on Saturday.

Sunday saw the squad attend mass at St Patrick's Church, then spent the afternoon clay bird shooting, with dinner hosted at the Masterton Marist Rugby Club.

A large part of the history of Marist and New Zealand Marist is around the education of all young individuals within the community. When first arriving in New Zealand they were responsible for starting the first schools within the country. To uphold the history and tradition of providing education to all youth and young adults part of the NZ Marist Rugby tour includes heading into local schools to engage with students and talk to them about what Marist means and also the values they uphold whilst also having a bit of fun.

The team are now in Palmerston North for the next few days. On Tuesday, the squad headed into another school to continue to engage and inspire the local children. Opeti and two others spoke to the students about the schools values of Strive, Acceptance, Integrity, Nurture, Talents and Service. The team's second match was against Manawatu U19 team last night.

MARIST NH SENIORS

BLUEBELLIES (PRESIDENTS)
Sat 29th July: In the final game before finals day at Kumeu, the Bellies come up against the Grizzlies with a squad of 27 available to play on the day. The Bellies had 16, and thanks to a Grizzlies player who donned the jersey to help us out to give us one more.

The game was hard fought and played in good spirit with the team coming out on the wrong side of the 4 all draw. Everyone put everything they had into it against what was always going to be a gutsy effort against overwhelming numbers.

It was good to see some Nobras playing again in the Glenfield colours.

Thanks to the Shannon and her team at the Glenfield Club who as always host the opposition team well.

Player of the day went to Alex Veldman for the work up front in the forwards.

Bring on Finals day at Kumeu on the 12th.

MARIST NH JUNIORS

SNOW WHITE J7 TOURNAMENT
The J7 Purple Tigers played in the Snow White Tournament on Sunday. They joined the two J7 teams together which gave them plenty of subs. The first game ended up as a bye, so they had their own game to warm up. The first game played was so fast it looked like double the speed of a normal J7 game! It was a close score but unfortunately a loss. The next game was close too, but again not to Marist's advantage.

The Purple Tigers ended up in the Plate round, and won the first game, which was hard earnt. This put them into the Plate Final, where they ended up behind by only one try, a very determined effort by the team.

The kids played so hard, putting in their best efforts, and did the Marist Club proud. Thanks to everyone for a memorable day.

James, Andre and Tina
J7 PURPLE TIGERS COACHES

Reports for the 29th July below.

J2 HAWKS
A great performance from J2 this week. North Shore came out fighting in the second half but the boys managed to maintain composure to secure another solid win.

🏉Player of the Day: Will Potter
🏉Coaches Award: Dither Struwig
🏉Special mention: Jacques du Plessis
🏉Opposition POD: Ben Morrison

J3 BULLDOGS
Tough game on Saturday, with an equally tough opponent. Takapuna played well and hard. A very physical game against a well-oiled machine of a team. A couple of really good runs by our boys and a couple of well deserved tries.
🏉Player of the Day: Toby Wilson
🏉Coaches Award: Dan Buckley
🏉Opposition POD: Kaelen McCabe.

J5 WOLVES
J5 Wolves had a big win on Friday night under the Vatican lights against Massey. It was great to see some exciting running rugby and support play, as well as the team showing great spirit by lending them players and playing a man down for most of the game to even things up. Special shout out to Handre for getting temporarily sent from the field by his referee dad and coming back on in a Massey shirt!
🏉Player of the Day: Jake Hedgman
🏉Coaches Award: Mikah Brown
🏉Opposition POD: Archie Carmichael
Shout outs to the following for their awards on 22nd July:
🏉Player of the Day: Bentley Leavitt
🏉Coaches Award: Archie Carmichael

J6 NINJAS
J6 had an enjoyable free-flowing game of rugby against Kumeu in the sunshine at Riverhead on Saturday. With only 4 players for the first half, Kumeu were kind enough to lend us a couple of players until halftime when some of our cavalry arrived.
🏉Player of the Day: Rocco Robinson
🏉Coaches Award: Liam Lockery
🏉 Opposition POD: Rocco Robinson

J7 RED TIGERS
The J7 Red Tigers had a great performance at the Friday night game. We saw lots of great individual performances and lots of team work which means they were backing up the runner with the ball, so we saw plenty of passing that finished in tries. Enjoyed seeing everyone giving it 100%.
🏉Player of the Day: Lucas Isherwood
🏉Coaches Award: Cooper Stewart
🏉Opposition POD: Lottie Baines

J7 BLUE TIGERS
Bye - no report.

J8 RED DRAGONS
J8 Reds enjoyed their game under the lights on Friday. There were a lot of big runs and defence was on form as the team became more confident at grabbing the rips.
🏉Player of the Day: Harley Olivdo & Teifion Tavita
🏉Coaches Award: Benjamin Hewitt & Walter Brown
🏉Opposition POD: Walter Brown

J8 BLUE DRAGONS
Bye - no report.

U15 GIRLS RIP OPALS
U15s had a great battle with Silverdale under lights at home. Possibly the best game we’ve played- heaps of great options on attack and some really desperate and committed defence.
The game finished with a 14 all draw, after being down by 3 with five mins to play.
🏉Player of the Day: Maisie Gliddon
🏉Coaches Award: Maddy Jackson

U11 GIRLS RIP SAPPHIRES
Our U11 Girls Sapphire’s continue to build momentum, coming away with an outstanding win against another new girls rip team this season. The Northcote girls & coaching/parenting team were a great positive opposition to play against.
We beat them convincingly with over 20 tries today, including some from our forwards. Te Koha was outstanding with her devastating step, gap finding, talking & positioning. Anna has been building in leadership, gave 100% all game which resulted in her 1st try!
🏉Player of the Day: Te Koharangi Moynihan
🏉Coaches Award: Anna Alvey
🏉Opposition POD: Sammie Kelly