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John McGlashan first five Oscar Crowe is scragged by Southland Boys' replacement Cooper Mitchell during a Southern Schools Rugby Championship game at John McGlashan College on Wednesday.
Tom Loader (left) and Lachie Clearwater are in support.
Southland Boys won the fixture 67-19.
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Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Top Four beckons for Southland Boys'
Southland Boys' have made the finals of the National First XV Championship and will chase glory for the second time in three years. They beat Christchurch Boys' 32-29 in Invercargill on Saturday and will join the regional winners of the Blues, Chiefs and Hurricanes competitions in the Top Four series later this month. Southland Boys' won the national championship in 2023 when the then 15-year-old Jimmy Taylor drilled a late drop goal to help set up the 32-29 win over Westlake Boys'. Taylor was at it again a couple of weeks ago when he banged over a drop goal to seal a 27-26 win over King's in the final of the Southern Schools Rugby Championship to clinch a berth in the South Island final. Christchurch Boys' headed to Invercargill following a 52-0 demolition job on rival Christ's College in the Crusaders final. The visitors opened up a 12-3 lead, but the home team rallied. Lock Jack McKeay crashed over from a quick tap penalty, and Taylor nailed an important penalty before the break to give his side a 13-12 lead, coach Jason Dermody said. "Just to go into the break with the lead was big," he said. "We had a bit of a breeze behind us, which was good, so we could kick the ball deep into their half. "There were a couple of big periods of defence, obviously, at the end again, where we didn't give away a penalty. "Just real proud of the boys. We won it through defence again." McKeay was back in the action early in the second spell when he drove over from close to the line. Then flanker Josh Cairns picked the ball up from the base of a ruck and ran in unopposed to give Southland some breathing space. Christchurch Boys' roared back with two unconverted tries. The game was back in the balance until Zeke Hammond-Siolo scored a tremendous try. A Christchurch Boys' clearance missed touch, and Southland Boys' spun it wide to the left winger. He hit the ball at pace, gave it the in-out to get around his marker, fended off the next and skipped through the last would-be tackler to score a 40m try. There was one more twist. Christchurch Boys' halfback Hiro Fuchigami scored a brilliant solo try to set up a tense final few minutes. He sold a dummy then busted through around the ruck and ran 20-odd metres to score between the posts. Southland Boys' defended desperately and held on. — Christchurch Girls' cruised to a 73-12 win over St Hilda's Collegiate in the South Island secondary schoolgirls final in Christchurch.
Otago Daily Times
12-08-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Sports codes left wondering where all the coaches have gone
The annual Green Island sevens football tournament. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON As the international rugby season kicks off in earnest, and other sporting codes compete for TV airtime and fans' disposable income, something worrying is happening down at the grassroots. Sports clubs across many codes are running with drastically fewer volunteer coaches and administrators, and the pressure is rising. According to the NZ Amateur Sport Association, the average number of volunteers has fallen more than 40% since the onset of the Covid pandemic, and those who remain are close to burnout. Volunteering has long been the lifeblood of community sport, but the average number of active volunteers in sport clubs has dropped from 31 to just 18 per club over the past five years. Coaching roles, so often filled by volunteers, are increasingly vacant or stretched. Sport New Zealand estimates young New Zealanders spend millions of hours each year participating in sport and recreation. These experiences rely on the goodwill of those volunteers — unpaid, untrained and often unacknowledged. While participation numbers remain healthy, fewer volunteers are having to do more of the work in many clubs. We may be witnessing a slow erosion of capacity that will stretch clubs thinner each season — until something gives. The pressure is especially visible in the area of health and safety — specifically, the measures and policies put in place to safeguard children from harm, abuse and exploitation. My research, conducted with volunteer coaches across New Zealand, has looked at how administering safeguarding policies affects coaching. The picture that emerged was one of confusion and caution rather than clarity. Coaches were unsure how to get it right, and wary of getting it wrong. Just 33% found their sport's safeguarding policy helpful. Others described defensive behaviours such as avoiding physical contact with players entirely, or hesitating to coach across gender lines. These weren't formal requirements, they were improvised responses, driven by uncertainty and fear of consequences. Some of the strain is caused by the system. Clubs are now expected to meet an expanding list of compliance and governance requirements. The Incorporated Societies Act, for example, requires every registered club to review its constitution, a task that usually falls to the same handful of volunteers already juggling coaching, managing uniforms or running sausage sizzles. A report from the Amateur Sport Association suggests only a third of clubs knew by 2024 what the re-registration process required, underscoring the challenges of implementing large-scale compliance changes in a volunteer-led system. It might be tempting to think volunteering would recover with better support — more toolkits, training and recognition. But early findings from my current research suggest something deeper is required. Volunteers aren't stepping back because they lack information, but because the experience of volunteering has become increasingly complex, isolating and hard to sustain. Three types of pressure are emerging most clearly: • "Role bleed" is when volunteers end up doing far more than they signed up for — agreeing to coach a junior team but finding themselves managing finances, sorting uniforms or leading the AGM; • "Interpretive risk" is the stress of not knowing what the rules mean in practice (especially around sensitive areas such as child safety), and the potentially serious consequences of getting this wrong. • "Compliance fatigue" involves the energy-sapping obligations around paperwork, reporting and other bureaucratic requirements. While often necessary, this work is rarely energising. As any volunteer will tell you, one thing that cuts across all three of these pressures is relationships. Where they are strong and volunteers feel supported, trusted and respected, they endure, even when demands are high. But when they're strained or absent, even modest pressure can take a toll – not just on retention, but also on personal wellbeing. There's another striking aspect of my research findings: it's not just about why people walk away, but why some don't. Even when relationships fracture, support disappears and the joy is gone, many volunteers stay out of a sense of loyalty and obligation, and a mixture of identity and habit. There's also a fear that if they step back, everything they've contributed will collapse. This is the quiet cost that is rarely named: not just fewer volunteers, but lonelier, wearier ones. Still turning up, still carrying the weight, but without the sense of reward and fulfilment. Stress, strained relationships and emotional fatigue are well established contributors to mental health decline. It's a quiet contradiction: on one hand, we position sport and recreation as a path to personal and community wellbeing; on the other, we overlook the toll it takes on the volunteers who hold it all together. There's no silver bullet. But the first step is recognising volunteer wellbeing isn't just a personal challenge, it's a shared responsibility. We need club systems geared to ease the burden, expectations that don't overreach, and cultures where kindness isn't an afterthought. Ultimately, recruiting more volunteers has to be a priority for all sporting codes — while ensuring the "lifers" who have kept the lights on are looked after in the process. • Blake Bennett is a senior lecturer in sport coaching and pedagogy at the University of Auckland.
Otago Daily Times
10-08-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Taylor delivers late as Southland Boys' claim title
Southland Boys' captain Jimmy Taylor lifts the Southern Schools Rugby Championship trophy after defending their title at Les George Oval on Saturday. PHOTO: TONI MCDONALD Jimmy Taylor is made for pressure situations. The Southland Boys' captain came up with a clutch drop goal in the dying seconds of their final against King's to snatch a 27-26 victory to win the Southern Schools Rugby Championship final at Les George Oval on Saturday. With 10 minutes left on the clock, King's were down 24-23 and were hot on attack in Southland Boys' danger zone, recycling the ball to push their case forward. They finally got a break when Southland Boys' were pinged in front of the post and King's fullback Lafa Tofiga — who was outstanding with a haul of 21 points — stepped up and slotted it straight through. It nudged King's ahead 26-24 with less than one minute to play — but Taylor turned to his troops and told them the plan. They executed to perfection. After several carries, first five Taylor sat back in the pocket and banged over the game-winning drop goal. He raced back to the halfway mark throwing his hands in the air, and after King's restarted, Taylor booted the ball into touch to secure the victory, a third straight crown for his school. Southland Boys' coach Jason Dermody acknowledged his team did not play their best rugby, but he was delighted with their nerve in the final moments. "Jimmy said 'we've still got time' and I said 'let's get down there, get the ball and let's see if we can get an opportunity', which we did — and then he did the rest," Dermody said. "He's just a high-quality individual that's got a lot of rugby in front of him. "Just loves those pressure situations, but he practices hard and works hard for those situations. It's no fluke that he does what he does." Dermody praised King's for their performance throughout the season and said the final "could've gone either way". "They were obviously gutted after the game, but the work that they put in this year, they're going from strength to strength so you can't take it away from them. "They could've won that game. Huge respect for them." Tofiga banged a over a penalty in the opening two minutes to give King's the lead. Southland Boys' hooker Luka Salesa scored from a solid rolling maul to bounce back and Tofiga nailed another penalty for the visitors. Josh Cairns scored for Southland Boys' and the home side held a 12-6 lead. But Tofiga scored in the corner after a brilliant build-up and second five Jeremiah Tuhega-Vaitupu scored in a similar spot to give King's a 16-12 lead at halftime. Taylor shimmied out of two tackles to score to give Southland Boys' the lead again. They extended that to 24-16 until King's found another gear and fought hard to close the gap and give themselves every chance to win. Christchurch Boys' thumped Christ's College 52-0 in atrocious conditions in the Crusaders secondary schools final. They led 24-0 at halftime and demolished their rivals with an eight-try haul. Southland Boys' will now host Christchurch Boys' in the South Island final at Les George Oval this Saturday. In the Southern Schools division two final, Southland Boys' 2nds edged Waitaki Boys' 24-20. South Otago beat Mt Aspiring 31-17 to win the division three crown, and Central Southland beat King's 2nds 26-17 in the division four final. Southern Schools final The scores Southland Boys' 27 Jimmy Taylor, Luka Salesa, Josh Cairns, Jack McKeay tries; Taylor 2 con. King's 26 Lafa Tofiga 2, Jeremiah Tuhega-Vaitupu tries; Tofiga con, 3 pen. Halftime: King's 16-12.
