Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi
With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive
We went to Hawke’s Bay with the goals of doing our best and to win more games than last year (one in Y4/5 tournament). With superb team work, we achieved this and walked away with six out of six wins. I am very proud of our squad of 13 players.
This was a remarkable result for our team. Our total unit contributed to the success, not only as players, but as supporters and whānau. The players and coaching group appreciated all the support we had during week – and it came in many forms – constructive advice and feedback, food and hydration (for kids and adults!), scorers, positive sideline encouragement, organising kai, and support from afar via CricHQ.
Each of our games was won differently – at times we batted first to set impressive targets, but equally we chased down totals. We came from slow starts to win games and we took crucial wickets when things were looking tight. Every player had a moment to shine and every player genuinely contributed to the team success. All tamariki got runs and all took wickets.
We had seven players retire over the tournament and some impressive bowling figures in each game.
We set high behavioural expectations for our players and I’m proud of the way they represented our club.
At front of mind, these are 10 and 11 year old children playing sport. Our responsibility is to ensure they have fun and to try to
keep them in the game. I hope their experiences from this tournament will contribute to this.
Dan Brown – Coach