The girl's got the moves - Annessah-Rae Araia scores one of her two tries in Mana Kotiro's 65-0 win over Wairoa. Photo / Paul Taylor
The girl's got the moves - Annessah-Rae Araia scores one of her two tries in Mana Kotiro's 65-0 win over Wairoa. Photo / Paul Taylor
A Hawke’s Bay rugby team has created history twice in two days, and it’s not the Magpies.
Mana Kotiro are an all-girls team taking part in the eight-team, 10-12 years, mainly-schoolboys Wakely Shield tournament in Taradale, playing their first game on Monday and having their first win less than 24hours later.
Ultimately, when beaten despite another strong performance on Wednesday, the team just missed a place in the shield semifinals, but were a hot contender for bottom-four prize the Leahy Plate, with playoffs starting on Thursday.
Mana Kotiro pre-match on Wednesday, before a loss to tournament favourites Napier East. Photo / Paul Taylor
It’s the first time an all-female team have taken part since the tournament started in 2004, and is thought to be the oldest age group in which it’s happened, with hopes of at least matching the success of Bay of Plenty’s Waikite Kōwhai girls team making their way through the lower grades in recent seasons.
Having a girls team in the Under-50kg Wakely Shield was one of the dreams of organiser Bas Wakely, who said he had been waiting for the past three years, before deciding last year it would be time.
Now that feeling has been justified with the team’s strong performance in being beaten 25-7 by Napier West on Monday and then scoring 11 tries to beat Wairoa 65-0 on Tuesday.
Mana Kotiro player Bella Lange eliminates some of the opposition on the way to one of her two tries on Tuesday. Photo / Paul Taylor
The chance of a semifinal rests on a Wednesday match against Napier East, who opened with an 81-0 win over Wairoa, and on Tuesday beat Napier West 29-19.
The winning Hastings East side last year had 11 girls and when Wakely said it was time, East coach Simon Lord, a former Colts and senior club coach, jumped at the chance to take the side - and hasn’t looked back
There were 60 girls who trialled six weeks ago to start the process of selecting a squad of 22 for the tournament, which follows last week’s Ross Shield tournaments, which had been for boys only for close to a century until the first girls appeared in the late 1990s.
More than 10 per cent of the 130-plus players playing for the Ross Shield last week were girls.
Lord said the girls were aware of the significance of the moment, with captain Rerekauia Hunia, of Hastings, telling him after Monday’s game: “We set history today.”
Having been down just three points till Napier West scored in the last movement of the game, and with the team having beaten the Saracens tournament team and Central Hawke’s Bay in warm-up games, he had to remind them it was still a tournament and if they were to get to the finals they needed to win, not expect to win.
Even a last-gasp tackle from a Wairoa defender couldn't stop Haelyn-Rose Karora-Hawkins scoring her try for girls team Mana Kotiro. Photo / Paul Taylor
They were soon on course in the wind-chill of Tuesday morning, when Bella Lange, Greer Hambleton and Annessah-Rae Araia each scored two tries and Maia Nelson kicked five conversions.
More tries were in order on Wednesday when the girls were beaten 39-19 by Napier East, who won all three games in the pool, as did Hastings East in the other pool.
Lord said the girls, most of whom had played in lower age group club teams, were keen to learn, with most trying new positions on the field after many had spent their time as designated wingers.
Just three of the squad were experienced forwards, and he said: “Most are playing out of position.”
Unusually for Wakely Shield and Ross Shield tournaments, none of the management (coaches Lord, Ricardo Fox, and Matt Crawford and manager Heath Hooper) have children of their own in the team.
An emotional onlooker on the opening day was Krysten Cottrell, who in 2004 played Ross Shield rugby and was selected with the boys in the tournament team, and who this year captained the Hawke’s Bay Tui to a Farah Palmer Cup women’s Premiership semifinal.
“It was a pretty awesome thing to see,” she said. “I wasn’t quite in tears but got goosebumps throughout the game. They played so well and I was just so excited for all those girls.
“The support they had there was amazing,” she said. “It felt like they had more supporters at that game than we do for the Tui.”
The tournament has two pools of four teams, the top two in each playing in Thursday’s semifinals vying for a place in Friday’s final, while the other two in each pool play off for the Leahy Plate.
It’s not confined to rugby, with goalkicking and sprinting honours at stake.
Wakely Shield Results:
Monday: Hastings East 71 Saracens 5, Hastings West 31 Central Hawke’s Bay 5, Napier East 81 Wairoa 0, Napier West 25 Mana Kotiro 17.
Tuesday: Mana Kotiro 65 Wairoa 0, Central Hawke’s Bay 29 Saracens 5, Hastings East 41 Hastings West 5, Napier East 29 Napier West 19.
Wednesday: Napier West 102 Wairoa 0, Napier East 39 Mana Kotiro 19, Hastings West 56 Saracens 15, Hastings East 60 Central Hawke’s Bay 5.
Thursday draw: Leahy Plate semi-finals - Saracens v Mana Kotiro, Central Hawke’s Bay v Wairoa; Wakely Shield semi-finals - Hastings West v Napier East, Hastings East v Napier West.
