The NZ Secondary Schools Super 8 sevens tournament kicks off this weekend bringing together the top North Island schoolboys to battle it out for sevens supremacy.
The New Zealand Sport Collective initiative is the brainchild of Olympic champion rower and former America’s Cup yachtsman Rob Waddell. He says the tournament is one of the many events in various sports to help develop rangatahi with their sporting journeys - with plans to include girls.
“We’d love to have some of the sister schools of those Super 8 schools be a part of this as well... We’d love to have more girls’ rugby and other sports too.
“We’ve enjoyed greatly expanding into different sports like kīorahi. There’s some really great events around and there’s ways we can look to grow that as well.”
National sporting organisations and event planners joined forces to form the collectives. attain more funding, participation, and social outcomes than they could independently for rangatahi.
The NSOs and event planners combined their broadcasting and sponsorship rights into a single programme and delivery channel, with this weekend’s action broadcast live and free on Whakaata Māori, MĀORI+ and Māori Active on YouTube.
“It’s had a number of benefits. From a broadcasting point of view, previous to the NZSC there were a lot of different sports doing a lot of different things. This has just brought it together into one central portal.
“When you think of the schools, friends and whānau who can’t afford the time and cost of attending some of these events, being able to have whānau supporting from afar, I know, has been really appreciated.”
Whānau can watch all the games this weekend between Gisborne Boys’ High School, Tauranga Boys’ College, Rotorua Boys’ High School, Palmerston North Boys’ High School, New Plymouth Boys High School, Napier Boys High School, Hastings Boys’ High School and Hamilton Boys’ High School, live from 10am on Māori Active’s YouTube and Facebook pages, with the live finals on Whakaata Māori on Sunday afternoon from 2:15pm.
