Tamatea club day makes a stand on fizzy drinks

Tamatea junior team Nga Teina 10th grade perform the haka

This year's Tamatea Rugby Club day saw no free fizzy drinks handed out to the kids, instead opting for a much healthier option - water.

"Last year we had 500 fizzy drinks to give away, but we replaced that this year with water," says Tamatea Junior Rugby chairman Paddy Steffert.

"If we didn't have water we would've been giving out 600 fizzies this year."

The club has experienced huge growth in its junior ranks with 240 kids making up 15 teams in the junior club, two more teams than last year.

With the increase in numbers there grew a continued desire to change the culture around consuming sugary drinks.

Steffert says that can only be a good thing when it comes to developing up and coming rugby players.

"Our committee has always spoken about fizzies and sugar and how we can find alternatives to fizzy because we always want to supply a free drink and a sausage sizzle to kids and all our visiting kids.

"But the reality is it all costs and fizzy has always been the cheaper option, so in the past we hadn't been able to do any other options so we just roll with whatever we can afford.

"But this year when we spoke about it again we realised that water is actually cheaper now, it's cheaper than the fizzies so we made that call.

"We're always conscious that our kids are just flooded in sugar and bad food, so we thought that we could have a crack at knocking that on the head and discourage fizzy."

The feedback from a lot of parents on the day was positive.

Though it is the first time the club has been able to offer water at no cost, there was a small amount of fizzy drinks available to buy.

"We did have 200 fizzy drinks to sell but in the end we only sold 100 of them."

Steffert says the timing of the change also aligns with the push behind the Moving the Māori Nation kaupapa.

The initiative aims to improve the overall wellbeing of Māori through being active and choosing a healthier lifestyle.

"Especially being a Māori club we can jump on that waka and support Moving the Māori Nation and get whānau fit and healthy and leave the sugar behind.

"For us it's just making that conscious choice on what is better for them as opposed to what they like."

He hopes that perhaps the PHO or DHB might be able to help in the future by donating the water to the club.