Christchurch Cluster Junior Boys: Winners St Bedes College A
St Bedes College A 32 Hillview High 19
St Bedes College B 40 Burnside College 25
Hillview High 30 St Bedes College B 16
St Bedes College A 39 Burnside College 19
Burnside College 17 Hillview High 16
St Bedes College A 33 St Bedes College B 06
Upon arriving off the plane in Christchurch AFL New Zealand staff were greeted by beautiful sunshine and great conditions for the Canterbury Junior Hawks Cup to be held at Northwood Park. With the sun still shining and the posts in place we were ready to get the games underway.
With 2 teams from St Bedes, a team from Burnside, and another from Hillview, we were in for 3 rounds in which each team plays everyone once. Right from the word go umpiring the first game between St Bedes B and Burnside I could tell the coaches (a mixture of teacher’s, pupils and members of the NZ Hawks) had done a great job in teaching them the basics of the game.
The fashion in which the players moved the ball around the field had me convinced they’d been playing for years. This sort of play continued for the rest of the tournament.Along with the great team play there were also some spectacular individual skills on offer, leaping marks, bounces and chasing tackles.
At the end of the day congratulations goes to St Bedes A for mixing the individual talent with good team play and coming away undefeated and deserved winners of the 2012 Christchurch Cluster Tournament. A big thanks to Josh Robles, Callum McKenzie and Kyle Smith for their support with umpiring and helping out and to Justin Davies head coach of the NZ Hawks for coming down and checking out the talent, to the coaches and team organisers for getting the teams together and most importantly to the players for putting on an awesome show.
