Children's water dumped

Steve McKee says tipping out children's drinks was 'weird'. Photo / Neville Marriner

Bemused dad Steve McKee was disappointed with security at Eden Park who refused to let young children take water bottles into a game yesterday.

Barfoot & Thompson invited 885 children from Auckland schools to the Auckland vs Wellington ITM Cup match at Eden Park.

McKee said he thought it was over the top that his children could not take a bottle of water into the game.

"I know they don't want people bringing in their own alcohol but to be tipping out water bottles on under 10s is a bit weird," he said.

"They just want you to buy the soft drinks once you get in," he said.

Barfoot & Thompson sponsorship manager Mildie Meyer-Els said the company received 885 tickets as part of its sponsorship of Auckland Rugby.

"We wanted to share the tickets with the community not just our staff so we had 70 schools write to us telling us why they should get the tickets and we selected the top ten," she said.

She said the children enjoyed the rugby and were "deafening" in their enthusiasm. Auckland won the game 43-30 moving to the top of the ITM Cup table.