Tauranga Boys’ College First XV to play historic match in Palmerston North

Tauranga Boys' College 1st XV captain Hohepa Chandler holds up the trophy after the team's victory last weekend. Photo / Jenny Jones

For the second time in history, Tauranga Boys’ College’s 1st XV team has made it to the Barbarians National 1st XV Championship.

The team was invited to the championship semifinals in 1983, the competition’s second year.

However, according to school principal Andrew Turner, 2023 marks the first year the team has qualified for the semi-finals under the competition’s new format.

“We’re very proud of them,” Turner said.

The team will play against Westlake Boys’ High School on at 1.10pm on Friday in Palmerston North for a chance to make it to the finals in the South Island this weekend.

Coach Aidan Kuka said the team were “extremely honoured” to be able to represent both the school and the Chiefs’ region in the top four 1st XV teams.

“We’re pumped,” Kuka told the Bay of Plenty Times.

“This bunch that we’ve got have worked extremely hard to put the season together. Their work ethic has been second to none and the standard that they train at, that they play at, is inspirational.”

Kuka said each member of the team had to make significant sacrifices to make it this far.

“These boys are travelling across Tauranga pretty much every day to get to training or to get to the gym before school starts.”

This was Kuka’s third year as team coach. He said he could only describe the boys’ progress as “exceptional”.

“They commit so much to the trainings and they push each other to get better.

“We always let the boys know that it’s school first and they have to be meeting the behavioural grades and academic grades of school to be able to go out and represent. So it’s been awesome to track the boys over the last two to three years and to see where they are now.”

Tauranga Boys’ College’s team cemented their place in the top four with a 33-26 win over Hamilton Boys’ High School over the weekend.

Hamilton Boys’ team has not missed out on the national championship since 2015.

Team captain Hohepa Chandler said the feeling that came with the weekend’s win couldn’t be described.

“It was amazing. We were so happy,” Chandler said.

“We were the underdogs coming into that game. It made it a bit sweeter to win.

“We proved ourselves right. We proved to ourselves that we could do it.”

Chandler, 17, said while he only needed to travel between 20 and 40 minutes to get to training, allowing time for traffic, many of his teammates had a longer commute.

“There’s other boys on the team who are travelling in from an hour out or a solid 50 minutes. There’s a lot of travelling.”

Chandler said he and the team were encouraged to arrive at training at 6.45am - but the early mornings and long hours were worth it.

“We’re really close together. We’re cohesive on and off the field. We’re always around each other. That’s really helped us on the field.”

Chandler said he shared every New Zealand kid’s dream of becoming a great, professional rugby player. But for now, he was focused on Friday’s game.

“We’re feeling confident, just happy with how we’re going in our moves and our build-up to leaving.”

Chandler said the team would be trusting in each other and the training to get them to the finals.

“We’ve come this far. Our goal is to win.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that 2023 was the first year the Tauranga Boys’ College First XV team played in the championship top four. To clarify, it was invited to play in the semifinals in 1983 but this year was the first year the team had qualified for the top four.

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“Another five minutes and it could have been our game but not today.”