The South Island school representing New Zealand in flag football on the world stage

St Andrew's College Preparatory School celebrate winning the NFL Flag National Championship in Wellington. Photo / Supplied (NFL).

You’d be hard-pressed to find a happier group of children than the flag football team at St Andrew’s College Preparatory School in Christchurch.

Quite fitting, then, that they’re off to “The Happiest Place on Earth”, after beating seven other primary/intermediate schools at the NFL Flag National Championship in Wellington.

It’s not just the all-expenses-paid-for stay at the Disney World Resort that will have the Year 7 and 8 students beaming with joy.

Their hard-fought win at the national event has propelled them to the international stage – whereas New Zealand’s representatives, they’ll square off against other schools from around the globe in the 5-on-5 non-contact version of American football.

“I can’t wait to go next year,” Year 8 student Olivia Quane said – one of only two girls in the 10-person squad.

Her coach and teacher at St Andrew’s, Mason Shaw, has long been involved with American football in the Canterbury region.

“We started to get the ball rolling, but then we found out that the NFL competition was only going to be available to the North Island last year,” he told the Herald.

Students in action at the NFL Flag Championships. Photo / Supplied (NFL).

Last year’s inaugural event featured just Auckland and Wellington-based schools as part of its pilot programme, as Bader Intermediate took the crown.

Once the event was made available to other regions, it was all systems go for the St Andrew’s team.

Shaw said learning the sport as part of the curriculum and preparing for the regional and national tournaments spanned just over five months.

“The NFL provides you with a six-week curriculum to teach it, but you want to spend a little bit more time than that, so it was over a good couple of months,” he said.

“Then we prepared for the tournament in Christchurch for the regionals and then after we won regionals, it was another good month or so of preparation before nationals.”

St Andrew’s is one of 65 schools that has flag football as part of its curriculum, with the NFL doing its part to ensure accessibility isn’t an issue.

“We provide teachers with an online training course, which allows them in their own time to learn how to teach the game and we provide the equipment being flag belts and balls to the schools for free as well,” said NFL New Zealand and Australia general manager Charlotte Offord.

“We’ve tried to break down as many barriers to entering a new sport into their curriculum as possible and ultimately, having a prize at the end of the tunnel is obviously a good incentive for them to play the game.”

Quane shares her joy in adding another sporting feather to her cap – along with netball, basketball, touch, swimming and surf-lifesaving.

“I enjoy playing with the team and getting the opportunity to play the sport because I’ve never played before and it’s fun,” the Year 8 student said.

“At the start when I had my first few trials, it was confusing but now that I know the rules, it’s easy to understand and I know how to do it.”

While the ball skills involved in the sport are far from challenging, getting the students to understand teamwork has been the core teaching point for Shaw.

“It’s realising that even though you may not get the ball, everything that you do within the game is playing a role, so making sure they understand that you may not see the ball for the entirety of the game, but just because you ran the way you’re supposed to run made us win the game.”

This year’s tournament featured a visit from several former NFL players, including Super Bowl champion running back Marshawn Lynch, who Shaw admits made him more excited than some of the kids.

“It’s cool to see that NFL atmosphere and them bringing it to life, giving the kids here in New Zealand an opportunity to see that. I think they were impressed at what New Zealand has to offer in terms of its youth talent.

“It was awesome to see Marshawn and see Beastmode in real life. He’s a big dude, so it was cool to meet some of those athletes.”

Shaw’s noticed the NFL’s boom in popularity has spread across St Andrew’s – with students expressing an interest in fantasy football, the Madden video game and college football.

That extends to the rapid growth of flag football in the country, with Offord sharing a clear vision of the sport’s participation numbers across schools.

“At the moment we’re currently at just under 65 schools across the country. We’re aiming to be at over 100 schools by the end of this year and then we’ll be looking to scale back to over 200 schools by the end of next year.”

St Andrew’s College Preparatory School, they’re reaping the rewards of finding success in a new sport. But there’s still plenty to do over the next few months to prepare for the trip of a lifetime.

“There’s lots of paperwork for the board at the moment,” he said.

“It’s just trying to give them as much opportunity as possible, having some day camps and training and getting them mentally prepared of what it’s like to represent New Zealand, play in stadiums and seeing the Pro Bowl athletes.”