Makoura College schoolboy Te Kapua Haira is a rare sporting breed who shoots netball baskets every day and dreams of umpiring a 2015 world championship game in the female-dominated code.
His twin brother Wiremu plays in the junior rugby team that just won the Wairarapa junior rugby competition for their school and his eldest brother, Tipene Haira, plays for the Wairarapa-Bush side.
Te Kapua says he "kept getting smashed over" when he tried rugby, so he cut his netball teeth with the Lakeview Flames, winning most improved player and MVP status before being voted player of the tournament at a Year 8 representative clash in Palmerston North last year.
There has been teasing, he says, but Te Kapua is determined to remain with his chosen code, which in Wairarapa generally bars males at Year 11, and now plays goal defence for the Dale Clarkson-coached Makoura Development Squad as one of the top Year 9 players at the school.
This month he won his Centre Umpiring Badge qualification after being invited to call the shots as a paid game official last week at the Lower North Island secondary schools championships in Wellington.
