Winter Tournament 2006

Monday 14th - Friday 18th August

BOYS' HOCKEY

The 1st XI Boys' Hockey Team travelled to Christchurch to compete in the Premier Secondary Schools Hockey Tournament - Rankin Cup. This year was always going to be difficult. After an outstanding 4th place in the competition last year the team lost many key players and had to rebuild for 2006.

After an initial loss to Auckland Grammar in Pool Play, the boys then went on to achieve a very satisfying win over Wellington College (our local rivals!). The final game in Pool Play was a very closely fought game against Palmerston North Boys' High School which we really did not deserve to lose. This meant that we ended up playing off in the section for the teams to take the places 9th-16th. It is worth mentioning that the two eventual finalists in the tournament were Auckland Grammar and Palmerston North Boys High School which was indicative of the hard pool that we were drawn in.

From this stage on, the boys showed their class by going through unbeaten with comfortable wins against Rangitoto, Otago Boys High School and St Paul's from Cambridge. This placed us 9th in the tournament and top of the bottom eight.

One of the main aims of this tournament was to maintain our place in Rankin Cup for 2007. To do this we had to place in the top 12, so this objective was easily achieved.

During the week the boys moulded together as a great team unit. A lot of our success was built around the key trio of Jamie Coombes, Blair Hilton and Jonny McMahon. John Forsyth proved to be one of the outstanding goalies in the tournament and his vocal organisation of the team on the field played a major part in many of our victories. John was selected as Tawa College's MVP of the tournament.

Many thanks must go to Coach Warren Keurresh and Manager Ian Coombes for their outstanding coaching and organisational abilities which have played a major part in this team for 2006.


GIRLS' HOCKEY

Last week the Tawa 1st XI Girls' Hockey Team travelled to Taupo to compete in the Eveline Hankers Memorial. For such a young team of girls we did really well and improved from game to game.

This tournament was more of an experience rather than winning it! We ended up coming 15th which we were all very happy about. It has been a tough season for the girls and for them to play with such pride and guts was a brilliant way to finish the season.

Each game that they went into, they were positive and never gave up. Each girl gave it her all and is looking forward to a successful season next year.


GIRLS' GOLF

Lydia Redpath travelled down to Cromwell to play in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Girls Golf Tournament. The standard at this tournament is always extremely high due to the large number of Korean students who play for Auckland schools. Lydia performed outstandingly on a difficult course to score rounds of 80, 78, and 76. This placed her 2nd in New Zealand for the 16 year old girls age group and 6th overall in the tournament. This was a great performance from an emerging and talented player who will shortly go on to represent the Wellington Women's team at the National Inter-Provincial Golf Tournament.


SQUASH NATIONALS

This year the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Squash Nationals were played here in Wellington. With the help from the Tawa and Mana Squash Clubs, Club Kelburn and College Sport Wellington, this was one of the most successful tournaments.

This year Tawa entered a girls team - the only Wellington girls team - and we were seeded 13th. After some hard games and only having a very novice team, we ended up coming 12th overall.

The Tawa Boys were seeded 10th and came an eventual 7th. This was an outstanding result and improvement over last year. The boys were up against hard teams from all over the country.

From this tournament Jess Wilson and Evan Williams were selected in the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Squash Team.


BOYS' SOCCER

This year the Tawa College 1st XI went to the 2nd tier tournament down in Dunedin after struggling through the season with injuries, unavailable players and a loss of 8 starting players from last year. The tournament had 22 teams with 2 pools of 6 and 2 pools of 5. We had a group of 6 and had to come in the top 2 to qualify to the quarter finals. In our first game we played Burnside. After being down 0-1 at half-time, we came back to win the game 2-1. Goals came from Todd Painter and Rudiger Coetzer. In the second game of the day we played Timaru, and this time got off to a better start with our Brazilian import Andre Aguiar scoring in the first 5 minutes. But with tired legs later on in the game we could not hold the lead and drew 1-1.

The second day proved to be our downfall where we had out only losses of the tournament. In the morning we played St Peters, again starting well but not being able to capitalise on early chances. They scored just before the half which changed the game. In the second half we fell apart and finally lost 0-4. In the afternoon we played Logan Park, and after our disastrous morning game we conceded an early goal. With poor finishing again we could not come back and finally lost 0-3.

Our last pool game on the Wednesday was against Nayland who were top of the pool. Just before departing to our game we were dealt a major blow when Philip Leacock slipped on ice and broke his ankle. Despite this, the team started the game well with 2 early goals from Andre Aguiar and from the penalty spot, Karl Romijn. We managed to hold onto the lead, eventually winning 2-1. After these pool games we had finished fourth in our pool, meaning we were playing off for 13th-16th.

We drew both of our games 1-1 on the Thursday and Friday against St Andrews and St Bedes respectively. In the first game Karl Romijn scored a goal in the last 5 minutes, only for St Andrews to get a controversial late equaliser. This meant a penalty shootout where we lost 2-4. The Friday game we were down 0-1 in the 1st half. Karl Romijn got a late equaliser to take the game to a penalty shootout. Once again luck was not on our side and we lost the shootout 5-6.

We finished 16th in the end, which was a tad disappointing as we had the ability to do better. Nick Boyd got voted MVP for the Tawa team by opposition coaches over the course of the tournament.The team also got the fair play award.

Thank you to Maarten Romijn, Greg Pestell and Colin Painter for taking this team down to Dunedin.


GIRLS' SOCCER

We left on Sunday the 13th August at 2pm on the ferry and finally arrived at our digs, the YHA hostel at 9pm in the evening. After a great sleep (!!!) we came against the first team of our group, Palmerston North Girls. They were an outstanding team and went away with a 2-1 win. Our next game was in the afternoon against Greymouth College. They were a lovely friendly team and we came away with a 4-0 win. The girls played superbly and started passing the ball well and bonding as a team.

Tuesday morning brought an early start and a game against Marion College. These girls came out hard and Tawa girls stepped up their game and played their socks off, unfortunately we lost 0-2 but we put up a great fight. In the afternoon we had our friendly game against Samuel Marsden. Sadly in the first half Jenny Promphong went down and we had to have an ambulance out. This was Jenny's last game of the tournament.

Wednesday was our final game in the pools and we won against Garin College, leaving us in 3rd place and the afternoon off. On the Thursday we came up against St Mary's College from Wellington and we unfortunately lost 1-2. Our second game of the day was Motueka and we came away with a 3-0 win.

The final game for us was Friday against St Peter's. Sadly we lost 1-2 but yet again the girls played their hearts out. We had a fantastic tournament and the team has improved brilliantly. Thanks to Jimmy's superb and dedicated coaching and the girls' enthusiasm, a great trip was had by all.

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