Rugby league: Hastings earn right to own cup again

CHARACTER KIDS: Hastings Intermediate after retaining the trophy at the Aims Games in Tauranga yesterday. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

THE MESSAGE was idiot proof from coach and deputy principal Shane Foster and Kiwi rugby league legend Kevin Tamati this week.

"We're taking the trophy back to Tauranga and only three boys - Art Thompson, Adam Bibby and Phoenix Flavell - are allowed to touch it," Foster explained last night, not long after the Hastings Intermediate rugby league team returned home with the silverware for the second year in a row.

"The three boys were returning players from the winning team last year but the others were not allowed to touch it."

That's because Foster and Tamati had impressed on their young charges, including the returning trio, that they had to earn the right to touch the trophy this year.

"They had to work hard and we told them only then they could own it so that's what excited the boys when we got there," said the deputy principal after the defending champions overcame two pool defeats through to a 14-0 victory over undefeated Orewa College in a final punctuated by rain on a slushy paddock.

Hastings lost 24-22 to Orewa in pool play but they had a gobsmacking 22-6 lead before the losing finalists clawed their way back to victory.

"We made a couple of errors which let them back into the game and they got a roll on from there," Foster said.

The champions emerged from their pool in third place after they had on Monday succumbed 22-16 to Rotorua, who were on the path of revenge after losing in last year's 12-6 final loss to Hastings.

On Wednesday Hastings won three of four games but stumbled against Orewa in their final round-robin match.

Not wanting to sound like they were looking for excuses, he said some penalties went against Hastings on the foundation of those self-imposed errors.

"We went back to the motel that night knowing we needed to tighten up our defence.

"We knew we could attack but it was the defence we needed to work on."

Talk is often cheap but the sermon from Foster and Tamati struck a chord as the schoolboys delivered with aplomb.

Hastings started the last three games with a 44-0 walloping in the quarterfinals before making Rotorua swallow more bitter medicine with a 10-0 semifinal victory.

"What was pleasing for Kevin Tamati and I was that the boys didn't let anyone cross the line on the last day."

Foster said it was ironic that his "rugby kids" came to Hastings Intermediate having never played rugby league.

"There's no rugby league pathway in Hawke's Bay for these youngsters," he said.

"Some people don't realise how challenging it can be to train a bunch of children to play rugby league so they can go on to become talented enough in New Zealand to become champions."

Part of the team discipline was lights and TV out by 9pm and the adult pair impressing on the youngsters that they weren't there to socialise but do their school and region proud because every other school saw them walking around with a target on their backs as defending champions.

After etching the school's name again on the trophy, Foster said the players' curfew was eased to a 10.30pm lights out.

Thompson, Psyris Aranui, Iraia Edwards and Derek Honotapu were the Hastings players to make the tourney team.

However, Foster said Bibby ("a tackling machine") and Manaia Lambert ("an elusive winger with his stepping and pace") also ought to have been included.

"You know, Manaia reminds me of Jason Robinson," he said, referring to the former English international.