Former New Zealand sevens captain DJ Forbes at Matauri Bay School rugby training this week.
Former New Zealand sevens captain DJ Forbes at Matauri Bay School rugby training this week.
Former New Zealand Sevens captain DJ Forbes could sense the rugby provenance as soon as he stepped onto Matauri Bay School's playing field this week.
His predecessor, sevens legend Eric Rush, was raised a couple of picturesque bays up the road in Matangirau, while the tiny Northland school has alumni on scholarships at exclusive boarding schools all over the North Island.
Within minutes of Forbes arriving to hold a RugbySmart warmup clinic, the current crop of talent - both boys and girls - were soon slinging perfectly-weighted spiral passes off both hands and nailing drop goals from halfway.
Admittedly, the school field is of the boutique variety; thick wooden posts frame a half-sized pitch, bordered by native shrubs on one side and jaw-dropping views of the Cavalli Islands on the other. The day Forbes called in, two-thirds of the school's rugby ball stocks sat high up in one of the nearby trees.
Matauri Bay School principal Jared Nordstrom gives his team a pep-talk during training for the Anchor AIMS Games
With a total school roll of just 70 - from new entrant to Year 8 - it's a scramble to form lunchtime scrimmages, let alone competitive teams.
Yet thanks to the infectious enthusiasm of the pupils and the dedicated drive of principal Jared Nordstrom, Matauri Bay is sending not just a boys' sevens team to September's Anchor AIMS Games in Tauranga but a mixed QuickRip side as well.
"Our kids live in a beautiful place up here but it's a small place," Nordstrom explains.
"When we get to go to AIMS, it's an eye-opener for the kids and it really broadens their horizons. It may just be for a week but the kids have a ball and they don't stop talking about it until it comes around the next year. Some of my past students, who are now in Year 10, still speak fondly about it and that's how I know it's a success."
Matauri Bay School new entrant Future Tautari joins her school's rugby teams for training this week.
Nordstrom, a former provincial loose forward for Waikato, Thames Valley and King Country, has been sending teams to the annual intermediate-aged tournament for the past three years.
The first year, the sevens team finished 43rd, two years ago they were 13th and last year they came within a whisker of making the final, losing to eventual champions Te Puke and ending third.
Matauri Bay rugby captain Kenny Tua during training for September's Anchor AIMS Games.
Even more impressive was that a lot of the team, such as rising star Kenny Tua, also played in the school's netball side at the tournament.
"I had to play a game of sevens, quickly get changed and then go straight over to netball," Tua said.
"We were low on players - it was a bit of a multisport thing! I really enjoyed the netball though and it was my first time playing competitively like that so it was challenging."
Matauri Bay School QuickRip player Ocean Pailegutu (left) tries to get past Jackson Himiona during training this week.
Last year was the first time Forbes attended the tournament; he had roles as a RugbySmart ambassador for New Zealand Rugby and ACC, and as an Olympic ambassador, while also sneaking in a stint as commentator.
"It was a pretty surreal experience, seeing the amount of kids across all sports getting stuck in," Forbes said.
"At that age, it's potentially the greatest sporting opportunity these kids will get to have and the whole week was ultimately about having fun and meeting kids from other schools."
The object of his Far North visit was to marry the budding rugby passion of the Matauri Bay students with some solid pre-match techniques to avoid injury.
Matauri Bay School's Kenny Tua tries to step past former NZ Sevens player DJ Forbes at training this week.
"When you've got a total school role of 70, you don't want to be having injuries so the RugbySmart drills are to give them some knowledge around warmups, help them with drills and skills to help injury prevention and to give them the best opportunity to be out there playing the sports they love for as long as possible."
Forbes left a little more than just the RugbySmart legacy as well - at the end of the session, he and New Zealand Rugby's Joe Harawira improvised a tree-harvesting, ball-retrieving programme to restore the small school's rugby ball stocks back to capacity.
Nordstrom, meanwhile, is a big fan of not making his troops specialise too early.
As well as sevens and netball, he's also had students compete in multisport at the AIMS Games and he again gave them the choice of what codes they could turn out in this year.
"We've always played a lot of Rippa Rugby and we've started playing QuickRip - I asked the kids what they wanted to play this year and the girls all said QuickRip. The mixed aspect of that is a big plus for us and for a lot of other small schools like ours."
QuickRip's introduction this year has seen rugby entries skyrocket - the 103 rugby teams is up from 57 last year and includes 31 mixed teams of the non-contact NZR-approved tag code.
Matauri Bay, meanwhile, has a largely new sevens team and Tua isn't sure how they'll go.
"We're not as big as last year but we have more speed and will use our ball handling and passing. Practice makes perfect and Matua Jared reckons that passing and tackling is the key."
Matua Jared doesn't care; he just wants his pupils to continue the spirit they've always shown at AIMS Games.
"One of the strengths of our school is that we're quite a friendly bunch. We make friends pretty quickly - two years ago, we played Pt England in the pool stages and they beat us.
"We decided anyone that beats us must be pretty good so we became their best supporters as they went on to win the title."
