Coaches Tower of Terror, Tu Meke Bootay and Gravity Worx put the level 2/3 rep team through their paces, boosting training in the lead up to the games.
"Trainings ramped up significantly, with offence and defence drills as well as strategy sessions. Current junior teams compete at Level 2 contact skills but there are a significant amount of Level 3 junior skaters at the moment leading to mixed scrimmage trainings in preparation for NZ juniors to send a representative team to France next year for the Junior Roller Derby World Cup," Amy says.
GnRs was started around seven years ago, already showing promise with a hugely successful boot camp in the 2015 July school holidays, before competing in the nationals three times, Amy says.
"The Northland league team based in Whangārei hosted the inaugural Younger Games tournament in 2019. In 2020 we hosted at the Rodney Green Arena in Napier and in 2021 the national event was a casualty of Covid lockdowns and restrictions. We were really excited to get back on the road and competing again. The atmosphere was electric."
The GnRs train during term time and compete when they can.
"This was hampered a little over the last few years due to Covid restrictions and the flood damage of our home venue Rodney Green Arena. We couldn't host home games until the flooring was replaced but the silver lining of the wait has been that Napier City Council marked out a permanent roller derby track on the new floor."
Amy says in preparation for the nationals they also managed to travel to Wellington during Queen's Birthday weekend for a doubleheader against Otautahi and a North Island invitational team.
The Whangārei weekend was the first ever junior Level 3 roller derby bout held in New Zealand and six of the GnRs kitted up in the mixed black team vs white team.
"This was a tough game, especially being played after a day of national competition."
She describes roller derby as an amazing full contact sport.
"It almost has to be seen to be fully appreciated. It consists of plays called jams, with a max of two minutes where teams field five players aside per jam, with one player (the jammer) scoring points by lapping the opposition. There are a huge number of referees and non-skating officials needed for each game and the entire league is held together by an incredible network of volunteers."
Amy says it was a quiet trip home for the group of 10 to 17-year-olds.
"The team was exhausted. A tournament like that takes days to recover from as it's physically and mentally draining – the bruising takes weeks to fully heal."
She says the team wouldn't have made it to the nationals without the considerable help from sponsors.
"The team and families fundraised with things like raffles and selling chocolates and are grateful to the Paisley Stage in Napier for letting us host an all-ages event with local musician Kenya Boerman, who is a GnR team member.
"We're also grateful to MPT Concrete and MCL Construction Ltd for their help, including lending us a vehicle to drive the team equipment to Whangārei while the team flew."
