Placings - 2021 NZ Secondary School Kī o Rahi Nationals

We have been given the official 2021 NZ Secondary School Kī o Rahi Placings by the whānau from Te Tai Tokerau.

These were based on games and points for and against, as some teams did not play one another to work out their final placings. Congratulations to all teams!

In what makes for interesting viewing, the regions of each school have been listed beside the school name.

This might have been the first time we’ve seen something like this.

It paints a good picture on how strong each of the regions in Aotearoa have become, we should look at these and start to ponder why some regions are stronger than others and what we can do for our own region to ensure growth and the strengthening of our region and the teams within it.

If we look at the table, the strongest region by far is the Tainui/Waikato region. With four teams inside the top 8. Their lowest placed team finished 11th, this was Ngā Taiatea Wharekura who were competing for the very first time. This in itself is still amazing. This means all teams finished well above the top half of the competition.

What does the Tainui region do to help prepare their teams for Nationals?

One, their regionals is a few weeks before Nationals, so teams would have been well practiced for this, I would imagine this helps in ensuring students have had competition in the lead up to the tournament. Some other regions do this too.

Two, also this year the Waikato region held a module for all qualifiers to be part of so that they could get a whole lot of practice in on top of their regionals, this would have strengthened each team considerably. A module would allow you to work out kinks in your Kī oma and Taniwha, it would allow you to try different combinations and get your subbing system right.

Three, they’re also fortunate to have a number of committed schools/coaches, all top 8 schools from the Waikato region have been coming to Kī o Rahi Nationals for a number of years. Rakaumanga have been their since the inception of the Nationals, Hamilton Boys & Girls I think debuted in Gisborne 2015, then won the competition in Tokoroa 2016, Te Kuiti and Tokoroa I remember seeing in Wellington 2014. All their coaches put a lot of time and effort into preparing their teams, he mihi nui ki a koutou!

Time to keep building our own regions whānau. So much can change in the space of a year if we’re all chipping away in our own backyards! We’ve also got the Year 9 & 10 Nationals to look forward to towards the end of the year!