Hamilton Boys High School 1st XI ended the week playing for the Rankin Cup and played some great hockey against some very high-quality teams from all over the country. They finished the week in 13th place which puts them as the 13th ranked schoolboys team in New Zealand.

St Paul’s Collegiate Boys 1st XI and Cambridge High School Boys 1st XI ended the week playing for the India Shield. Both schools competed very well all week with Cambridge High finishing 10th place and St Pauls finishing in 15th. This placed them 26th and 31st in New Zealand which is a great effort to achieve.

St Peter’s School Cambridge Girls 1st XI finished the week competing for the Federation Cup, they ended up making the top 8 with an 8th place finish which is an awesome achievement placing them as the 8th placed schoolgirls team in New Zealand.

St Paul’s Collegiate Girls 1st XI along with Hamilton Girls High School 1st XI and Waikato Diocesan School For Girls 1st XI played off for the Marie Fry Trophy with St Paul’s Collegiate coming out on top to win it in a thrilling shootout over Kings College, this means they are back-to-back Marie Fry Trophy winners. This is an astonishing achievement to win this trophy once let alone winning it back-to-back. Hamilton Girls High School finished the tournament in 8th place and Waikato Diocesan School for Girls finishing in 10th place. St Paul’s finish as the 17th ranked side across New Zealand schoolgirls teams, HGHS 24th and Waikato Dio 26th.

Putaruru College 1st XI enjoyed a successful tournament in Taupo, they finished 3rd in their pool and ended up finishing 8th at the end of the week. It was great to follow and see our association represented at the North Island Mixed Championships.

St John’s College Boys 1st XI, St Peter’s School Cambridge Boys 1st XI and Hauraki Plains College Boys 1st XI went to Tauranga and played in a very competitive Olympic Stick tournament. The 3 teams played hard hockey all week and led to them all finishing in a group in 13th,14th, and 15th.

Rototuna High School Girls 1st XI and Hauraki Plains College Girls 1st XI were in Tauranga as well and played a great tournament where the Rototuna girls team ended up playing off for 3rd and 4th with them being unlucky in the last match finishing them off in 4th place which is a great achievement for them in a very competitive tournament, Hauraki Plains girls also finished very strongly rounding out the top 8 in 8th place.

Cambridge High School Girls 1st XI finished this tournament off with a great win against a Intercity rival in Western Heights High School which meant they walked away with a bronze medal for their great efforts in Auckland. Sacred Heart Girls College 1st XI were the other team in action up in Auckland and they ended up 3rd in their pool, the top 2 of their pool ended up as the two finalists of the tournament. SHGC worked away hard in the final stages and came away with a well-deserved 7th placing which they are absolutely stoked with.

Matamata College Girls 1st XI played a great tournament, in their final match they won via shootout over Tawa College who they lost to in pool play to take out 11th spot in the tournament.

Hamilton Boys High School Development had an outstanding tournament week. They started hot out of the gates winning their first game 11-0 and not looking back from there. They scored 25 goals in their 5 games and conceded 0 goals. They finished the tournament with the gold medal after a hard fought 1-0 win over Glendowie College. Rototuna High School Boys 1st XI played a great tournament also, a very young side building towards strong results at next years tournament, they ended up finishing 7th after a great 4-2 victory in their final game over Botany Downs Secondary College.

We had plenty of WHA umpires representing us at various tournaments. All umpires are appreciated for their hard work they put in and for how hard the job can be.

Ben Pilmore-Evans and Kess Goodman went to Rankin Cup/India Shield with both of them doing many notable matches at the end of the week.

Ben umpired in an India Shield Semi-final, a Rankin Cup Quarter-Final, and was the Reserve Umpire for the India Shield Final.

Kees umpired in an India Shield Quarter Final and the Rankin Cup 7th/8th playoff match.

Jack Edmonds was privileged enough to umpire the final of the Tier 4 tournament in Pukekohe and Alexander Stokes was selected to be an umpire in the final of the Olympic Stick tournament over in Tauranga.

Congratulations to all the above umpires for their performances. It is a great honour to be selected to umpire finals matches at any level. WHA are very proud to have you involved in our umpiring cohort and mentoring programmes.