First XV rugby: St Kentigern edge Hamilton Boys’ High; Auckland Grammar show peak form; Wellington College thump Nelson College in 150th

Indeed, if winning had been the prime consideration, Hamilton could well have nicked this match in the final five minutes, when they were presented with penalty options. You got the impression that converting a late penalty would have been no bother to fullback Jackson Botherway.

For all that, Hamilton did look more like castles in the sand when St Kentigern scored in the opening minute, as lively halfback Keanu Graham continued his impressive pre-season form with a try, finishing a fast break up the middle.

While St Kentigern have been renowned for keeping things tight with a big pack in recent years, they appear to be embracing a more expansive game style this season.

It looked even more ominous for Hamilton when St Kentigern second five-eighths Cruz Kea-Cameron produced a storming 70m run to score and give his team a 12-0 lead.

The skilful, composed and versatile Kea-Cameron is certainly one to watch. Last month, he also starred for Muriwhenua at the Northland Rugby League 9s, where he was named as Most Valuable Player (MVP) as his team won the Under-18 grade.

But Hamilton gradually grew into the game and lock Kent Mills pulled a try back after a clever offload by No 8 Isaiah Edwards. Edwards copped an early yellow card but was nevertheless one of the match’s most dominant and influential figures. He’s a Year 11 who plays as if he is a Year 14.

And right on halftime, Hamilton broke from their own 22 with left wing Liam Elliott freeing second five Max Kara to score under the posts for a 14-12 halftime lead.

However, St Kentigern regained the initiative with two second-half tries, including a fine gather and finish from right wing Owen Lamb from a kick into space.

Hamilton wing Luke Phillips replied with an unconverted try and Ethan Hyatt kept it interesting at the finish with a further try.

But perhaps fittingly, Kea-Cameron intercepted Hamilton’s final play of the match as they were hot on attack and kicked the ball into touch for the win.

“If it was a competitive match, the choices would have been different, but at this time of year, the idea is to generate tries,” Hamilton coach Cam Moorby said.

“It was a hell of a contest and we learned a lot about ourselves. You get so much more out of a game like that than from racking up big scores.

“It is always a toss-up when you take on St Kentigern because they are always good athletes, big, strong and with dangerous backs, and nobody likes to get smacked in the face too often.”

St Kentigern were without their usual First XV skipper, No 8 Lucian Mikaele, but regularly bothered Hamilton at lineout time and had an edge in the scrums.

Best for Hamilton were energetic flankers Tom Foote and Hyatt. The Lodge Real Estate-sponsored team have lost a lot of talent from last year – most notably the likes of Ollie Guerin and Liam Van Der Heyden – but there is a new intake stepping up.

For instance, Hamilton have promoted first five Patience Tuapola from their Second XV. He’s of Samoan ethnicity, originally from Perth and looks quite instinctive, with a sharp kicking game.

Auckland Grammar, perhaps unlucky not to make last year’s 1A final, gave a hint of their potential in the forthcoming season with a 62-0 trouncing of Tauranga Boys’ College.

Grammar, coached again this season by Dave Askew, don’t do media, but Tauranga coach Aidan Kuka couldn’t help but be impressed.

“They [Grammar] have a very tidy backline, very fast with a high skillset,” Kuka said. “They are very cohesive and played very well.”

Incidentally, standout midfield back Nico Stanley is head prefect at Grammar this year.

Meanwhile, Tauranga only returned from their three-match tour of Japan last Tuesday and Kuka felt his squad had not recovered.

“We were very flat after our tour of Japan. It was a very energetic tour.”

If it was a tough occasion for Tauranga, it was not their worst. Almost certainly Tauranga’s biggest loss in any First XV was 91-0 against Hastings Boys’ High School in 2001.

Consolation for Tauranga came in the First XI football exchange, which they won 8-2, a result almost as astonishing as the rugby, with man of the match Keegan Molloy scoring two and Lachie Harding two. For context, Tauranga’s First XI have also just returned from Japan but, unlike their rugby brethren, were anything but flat.

Meanwhile, Southland Boys’ High School rolled defending 1A champions King’s College 29-12 in Invercargill. It was the first outing of the season for Southland and at stake for the first time was the new Alatini Skelt Cup, named after long-time Southland Boys’ High coach Peter Skelt and former All Black Pita Alatini, who is King’s College’s head of rugby.

Fewer things are more quintessentially Kiwi than two balding blokes in thick jackets, hands in their pockets and gumboots, drenched by rain, grumbling at the decision-making of sprightly athletic kids on the sidelines of a rugby match, only to be proven wrong.

“Scrum it,” they insisted. Wellington College prop Julius Toimata tapped instead, charging over the tryline in a flash. Nearby, an overwhelmingly cheerful woman jumped for joy and an umbrella splintered.

That encouraging soul was Tapaita Kamoto, whose grandson, Wellington College flanker Laifone Kamoto, played a blinder in Wellington’s 43-5 thumping of Nelson College in their sesquicentenary fixture.

“She’s always like that,” Laifone Kamoto said. “We wanted to put on a performance that made our parents and old boys proud.

“We had extra training this week and worked hard to improve our connections from earlier games. I always knew we had the potential to play like that, but to actually do it today was awesome. It’s special.”

As they did on July 20, 1876 in the first interprovincial First XV secondary school game in New Zealand, Wellington beat Nelson.

However, the 43-5 scoreline, compared with the 2-0 margin in the 19th century, was scarcely believable.

In 2024, Nelson crushed Wellington 47-0 and had not lost to the hosts in seven meetings since 2014. Wellington’s only bigger triumph against Nelson was a 47-0 whitewash in 1990.

That year, Gary Whetton was the All Blacks captain, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and Phil Collins’ Another Day in Paradise was a hit on the Billboard charts.

Gusting 90km/h northerlies and sweeping rain were the opposite of paradise, but Wellington struck Nirvana in the first half, soaring to a 31-0 lead.

Toimata started as imperiously as Caesar, snaffling a jackal turnover and then scoring a try in the corner with hands that resembled David Boon’s catch on Shane Warne’s hat-trick ball in the 1994 Melbourne Ashes test.

Wellington were feverish but disciplined, overwhelming Nelson in the rucks and kicking with precision. Kamoto and fellow third-year loose forward Z’kdeus Schwalger caused damage.

Twice, first five-eighth Cooper Werkhoven thumped a 50-22, enabling Wellington to launch plough-truck lineout drives. After two earlier misses, Werkhoven converted Wellington’s third try with a drop kick after the ball fell off the tee twice. The kick curved better than Rory McIlroy’s iron play in his Monday Masters win.

It was one of those days when everything went right for Wellington. Halfback Ben Willocks sniped as All Black Joey Sadler did in this clash in 1931. Centre Liam Phelps slid over the line gleefully, his symmetry with second five Ben Faitala as natural as one can get in April.

And when Toimata crossed for his second try and Wellington’s fifth of the first half, the record books were being consulted.

Predictably, Wellington lacked the verve and intensity of their first-half masterpiece. Nelson managed a try to substitute hooker Lochie Bates. Captain Reiahumanaru Pouri-Lane, the younger brother of Black Ferns Sevens captain and Olympic gold medallist Risi Pouri-Lane, toiled gamely at openside. Fullback Liam Soper was the only visiting back to breach the black-and-gold wall.

“We knew they were a physical side. They hit us hard early and we didn’t react well. Full credit to Wellington College,” Pouri-Lane said.

And credit to Tapaita Kamoto, the salt-of-the-earth backbone who fuels our kids to greater heights, just as one assumes parents did in 1876.

The game, broadcast on Sky TV, was refereed by Nathan Pinder, Ollie Michie and Jack Cottrell.

The cross-generational appeal and relevance of First XV rugby, though cringe-worthy or censorship-worthy for some, was best shown at a $250-a-head lunch on Friday at Wellington College, where the champagne flowed for over 200 guests.

Broadcaster Sean Plunket, 61, asked a panel comprised of 2011 Rugby World Cup-winning coach and former school headmaster Sir Graham Henry, 80; former All Black and larrikin entrepreneur Marc Ellis, 54; and 2015 Rugby World Cup-winning hooker Dane Coles, 39: “What is your earliest schoolboy rugby memory?”

“1951,” Henry mumbled, lifting a glass of pinot before anyone else could answer. “Marist Albion, why?” he continued. “I was 5 years old, frost, barefoot, in a scrum with Mike Eagle up my bum.”

Eagle was chairman of the New Zealand Rugby when the All Blacks “thrashed” France 8-7 at Eden Park to win the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

In 1964, Henry was also part of a Christchurch Boys’ High School First XV that won all 18 matches. None of that roster made the All Blacks – but five later attended his mother’s funeral when she died, aged 101.

Plunket was a member of the Nelson College First XV in 1981, which did not achieve much except somehow enticing the much-maligned Springboks tourists to leave the DB Rutherford Hotel after flogging Nelson Bays 83-0 and drink at their after-season party until at least 2am.

This behaviour incurred the wrath of English and social studies teachers – much like Plunket still does today on The Platform.

He further provoked when he reminded the crowd that he was part of the 1982 First XV that beat Wellington College 11-10 on the way to winning the annual quadrangular tournament. This tournament also featured Whanganui Collegiate and Christ’s College for the first time in 17 years.

Jocular Ellis still quips like he’s 17, now worldly to boot. The Wellington College First XV talisman between 1988 and 1990 outbid himself on an auction for a signed 2026 Highlanders jersey donated by fellow Wellington College First XV whippet Stanley Solomon.

Ellis raised his original purchase of $750 to $1000. He is also on the Highlanders board. Perhaps he’s entitled to a tax rebate.

Dane Coles was the “fattest Year 9” at “small-town” Paraparaumu College, 66kg in the Under 75kg team that won Division Five. But from podgy to potent, he did a wide-eyed “Year 14” at Wellington College, as he matured.

He was in the team which beat Nelson College 22-15 and Whanganui Collegiate 23-16 to win the annual quadrangular event and duly launched a career as illustrious as any No 2 in the game.

However, so far, coaching has not reaped the same rewards. The Paraparaumu Rugby Club has lost all three games to start their 2026 Ramsbotham Cup season and are already down two tighthead props.

Coles asked Henry how to rally tradies, fathers, husbands and students. It might have been a while since a knight of the realm mingled in those circles, but “Ted” was really not that different from everyone else present, regardless of age, size or career status.

None of them was there to reflect on Period 5 maths.

Otto Rasch, a former Wellington College First XV prop (1997-99) and coach, has donated a special pounamu taonga through his business, Straightforward Building Solutions, for the Wellington-Nelson fixture.

The pounamu, sourced from the banks of the Arahura River in Hokitika, is considered a peace stone and blessing for good things, which absorbs the mana of its wearer through the oil of their skin and cleans and heals.

It was carved by the family of former All Black and current Wellington First XV coach Piri Weepu. The taonga honours J.P. Firth, a Nelson master who played in the first game in 1876 and was headmaster of Wellington College from 1892 to 1920. He played an influential role in rugby’s growth in both the capital and New Zealand.

Rasch coaches current Jubilee Cup and National Club Sevens champions Hutt Old Boys Marist.

Wellington and Nelson have clashed 88 times. Wellington hold a 47-38 advantage, with nine games drawn.

Westlake Boys’ High School coach Rob Mildenhall has described his team’s two-week pre-season campaign in South Africa as “an old-school tour” and a very productive one.

The touring party of 32 players, made up of seven management, had one opposed training against Parktown Boys, three Easter Rugby Festival matches at St John’s College (Monument Hoërskool, Welkom Gymnasium and Hoërskool Randburg) and a final game against Paul Roos (which was against their second team).

“We intentionally chose to do an old-school tour as we have a young side and the benefits of such a tour would have positive implications for the next three years,” Mildenhall said.

“We had three key objectives. The first was for the boys to embrace the challenge. They would be away from home, have their sleep cycle inverted, would play at altitude and have to face some of the toughest teams in front of a packed stadium.

“Secondly, we wanted to grow the culture within the group. There is nothing better for bonding then being together and having to rely upon each other. As coaches, with the senior players, we got to show the extended group what it means to be a Westlake First XV player.

“Thirdly, we wanted everyone to return as better rugby players or coaches.”

Westlake’s highlights included spending four nights at Windy Brow Game Farm (the Bulls use this venue for a pre-season camp).

“What a place. You wake up, walk down to the rugby field see the wildebeest, impala and zebra come to graze,” Mildenhall said.

He called the St John’s festival “unreal”.

“We got to mingle with many of the top teams from South Africa, as well as Nudgee College from Brisbane.

“Playing in front of a full house was a highlight for the boys. Finally, we headed to Stellenbosch to play at Paul Roos, who were generous hosts, and then we had two days in Cape Town being tourists.”

That included a trip up Table Mountain and a visit to Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years).

“As coach, my highlight was seeing how well the boys acquitted themselves, rose up to accept any challenge, became best of mates and most impressive, how they grew as rugby players.”

Westlake are away to Whangārei Boys’ High School as the North Harbour season kicks off this weekend.

Kyocera North Harbour 1A draw, Friday (home team first): Takapuna v Rangitoto 3pm; Mahurangi v Ōrewa, Warkworth Showgrounds, 6pm. Saturday, 12pm: Rosmini v Massey; Whangārei v Westlake.

Despite tough financial times, Manukura School’s girls side have, since December, defied the odds by raising funds and sponsorship to cover $90,000 in travel costs for their trip to Japan.

The National Top Four and Condor Sevens champions will be New Zealand’s only female team at the Sanix World Rugby Youth Tournament at the Global Arena sports complex in Munakata City, Fukuoka from April 28-29.

The boys’ tournament features 16 teams (including Rotorua Boys’ High School and Feilding High School) playing 15-a-side, but the girls’ event is a sevens competition with eight teams.

Manukura’s trip was uncertain at first, but thanks to broader fundraising, support from regular donors and a new jersey design, the team flew out of Palmerston North on Saturday for two weeks.

“Asking our whānau for several thousand dollars in airfares alone was a massive ask just before Christmas with the pressures of that time,” coach and former Black Fern Kristina Sue said.

“Fortunately, the Tānenuiarangi Charitable Trust supported our kaupapa [programme, purpose] in providing our girls with a cultural experience beyond a rugby tournament. We’ll visit the Imperial Palace and Shibuya in Tokyo, then take a bullet train to Osaka to share a cultural exchange with Otemon High School and tour Universal Studios.

“In Kurashiki, Okayama, we’ll compete in the Bridge Cup Festival before heading to Fukuoka for Sanix. This trip is about more than just rugby; it gives our girls a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a foreign culture and make new connections.”

Still more money was required, despite the support of Work Fitness Levin, run by a relative of Sue, and a contribution from juice and beverage company Nippy’s, so after lengthy deliberation, Manukura approached apparel provider C3 Clothing.

C3 Clothing designed a new jersey, the first change to the original kit since the school opened in 2005. It depicts a Māhoe pattern that represents fire and healing.

Sue said Manukura wanted to avoid overt advertising and instead chose something symbolic and eye-catching that represents their kaupapa.

Authentic, young, vibrant and talented. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that pie? But can Manukura bring the heat in the Land of the Rising Sun?

Two previous trips didn’t yield silverware. In the 2023 final, Manukura were beaten 27-0 by King’s Christian College from Australia. Amahli Hala, who contested Sunday’s Hong Kong Sevens final, was the most outstanding player, while Manawatū Cyclones representative Jayda Maniapoto captained Manukura.

Then in 2024, Manukura won all three pool games but came unstuck against Japanese opposition on day two, the Fukuoka Rugby Football Club and Kanto Gakuin Mutsuura High School.

“The standard of play in Japan is very high,” Sue said. “Their players are fast, technically proficient and intelligent.

“There is even a professional league that several Black Ferns have competed in that offers a small pathway for their younger talent. Ideally, we would have had better preparation than no games and a short fundraising window, but we’ll have five players who’ve been there before. Their past experience will be important.”

Captain Taylah Seng has been on both previous Japan trips. With six national titles in rugby, sevens and touch, she might be the most decorated high school player in New Zealand.

Cruelly, Taukaea Ngatai-Cribb, scorer of two tries in the Condor Sevens final victory against Howick College, has injured her ACL and won’t attend. However, Gabby Wright, who suffered the same injury earlier in 2025, returns. Keighley-Rein Araia is tiny but has exceptionally nimble feet, while Pewhairangi Ashby displays a relentless workrate, as does Elley May-Taylor, a XVs openside flanker of repute.

Black Ferns representative Maia Davis previously attended Sanix with Manukura.

Competing schools: The Glennie School (Australia), Worthing College (England), Queen Margaret’s School (Canada), Manukura (New Zealand), Fukuoka Lady’s Rugby Football Club (Fukuoka), Otemon Gakuin High School (Osaka), Yokkaichi Maryknoll Gakuin High School (Mie), Kanto Gakuin Mutsuura High School (Kanagawa).

Manukura squad: Asha-Rose Waerea, Elley-May Taylor, Gabby Wright, Kaylani Anaha, Keighley-Rein Araia, Malena Leatherby-Millar, Ngakahu Mathieson-Julian, Pewhairangi Ashby, Rerekauia Hunia, Scarlett Hodder, Taylah Seng, Tiana Walsh-Addenbrooke.

St Patrick’s College, Silverstream rallied from 29-14 down to beat St Bede’s College 31-29 in their annual fixture in cool, clear conditions in Christchurch.

Silverstream have won the fixture, which stretches back to 1931, for four consecutive years and enjoy a 32-13 advantage in all matches.

However, throwing two interceptions that led to tries risked fate against an always determined, sometimes dashing and vastly improved St Bede’s outfit, compared with the 2025 version.

Jack Gunn, Ethan O’Donovan (brother of Munster halfback Ben O’Donovan), Monty Fosita and Cody Donaldson crossed for the hosts. George Kneebone (son of Black Ferns assistant coach Simon Kneebone) added two conversions.

Silverstream replacement Donald Mar was named the visitors’ player of the day, a salute to the collective power of their bench. The Wellington Premiership champions’ tries were scored by Fletcher Cooper, Val Tufui, Jaxon Ropitini, Salaki Kini and Mea’ole Ma’i. Cooper kicked three conversions.

Meanwhile, defending Super 8 champions Palmerston North Boys’ High School beat Whanganui Collegiate 31-7 away, with tries to Micah Steinmetz, Max Hill, Matt Bell and Cole Cullen (2) to retain the Centennial Cup.

Holders Rotorua Boys’ High School began their defence of the Moascar Cup with a comprehensive 59-5 win over Tangaroa College from Auckland’s 1B competition.

Gisborne Boys’ High School, who finished bottom of last year’s Super 8, have recorded a notable 36-31 win over reigning Central North Island champions Feilding High School, with tries to Sakenasa Seivono (2), Jerry Dygas, Coen-Theros Brown, Leaiasi Tupou and Mana Stewart and three conversions to Ruan Ludwig. For Feilding, there were tries to Lucas Goodman (2), Jone Lecia (2) and Eli Satchwell, while Mac Foreman made three conversions. It was Feilding’s final match before heading to the Sanix World Youth Tournament in Japan.

St Paul’s Collegiate (Hamilton) have returned from a short tour of Japan where they had a 50-19 win against Osaka’s Hotukan High School, a 59-17 victory versus Kyoto High School and 33-22 loss against Toyo University (Tokyo). They begin their Central North Island campaign away to Lindisfarne College on May 2.

Sky Sport’s early season live First XV coverage has been announced:

May 29: Nelson College v Marlborough Boys’ College, (12.30pm).

June 7: Westlake Boys’ High School v Rosmini College (12 noon).

June 11: Wellington College v St Pat’s, Silverstream, (1pm).

June 26: Christ’s College v Whanganui Collegiate School (11.25am).

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