The 2023 junior rugby season has wrapped up after several months of exciting games on both the ripper and tackle fields. This year we have a total of 22 teams playing for TA Sports – 7 teams playing 6th and 7th Grade ripper and 15 teams playing 8th – 13th Grades (tackle).
Overall we were largely lucky with the weather for our Saturday games, though Tāwhirimātea had other ideas about some weeks’ training nights, sending down lots of rain! Both ripper grades played a full season, on Saturday mornings. The feedback from parents and coaches has been positive – the kids love these games and it's great to see them learning new skills.
The development and confidence from 6th – 7th Grade have been fantastic to see, with a lot of them starting to show that they’ll be ready for tackle rugby next year. 8th – 9th Grades have had some excellent face-offs between our teams (TA Sports had 3 in 8th and 4 in 9th this year), as well as against teams from the other Te Awamutu Sub-Union clubs (TA Marist, Ohaupo, Pirongia and Kihikihi).
It’s always so great to see lots of supporters on the sidelines for these young teams – Thanks support crew – keep it up! 10th Grade joined the 11th, 12th and 13th Grade teams this year, playing within the Waikato Central Junior Rugby (WCJR) competition, so the travelling began! – to Hamilton, Cambridge and as far as Raglan, Taupiri and Tokoroa.
All teams played exceptionally week-to-week, with a couple of teams remaining unbeaten throughout the whole season! It’s exciting to see the teams starting to travel and work up to 15-a-side footy. Our 13th Grade kids made up a combined TASU team (Waipa Warriors), with kids from the other TASU clubs. It is wonderful to see the range of skills developing from grade to grade and this wouldn’t happen were it not for the coaches, co-coaches and managers.
A huge thank you to all those who put in so much time with this, and to the whanau who get our kids to training, and games and come and support.
Thanks to the local businesses who supported our drive last year, to purchase a dedicated BBQ trailer for future fundraising – this has been used for weekly sausage sizzles most weeks throughout the season. This type of support allows us to fundraise easily, to keep subs etc. as low as possible.
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