The USA Eagles were welcomed to Scots College in Wellington by a crowd of over 500 supporters at a ‘Meet the Eagles’ event. A group of Scots College students performed a Haka in front of the Eagles (video below) before the U.S. national anthem and speeches by the U.S. Ambassador Huebner and Eagles captain, Todd Clever. The supporters were then treated to an all American style dinner, and a chance to have photos with and autographs signed by the Eagles players.
More photos to come.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pexwq4oG_I]
The Eagles signing autographs for their fans.
Eagles Supporters.
Patea Maori Club & the U.S. Marine Corps Pacific Band performing a joint haka at the Taranaki International Village on 9/11 during the build-up to the RWC clash between Ireland & USA in New Plymouth.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4mygFObFdA]
Thanks for posting on YouTube SwissKiwiGirl.
The Rugby World Cup kicks off today with the hosts New Zealand taking on Tonga at 8:30pm (NZ Time).
Part of the RWC buzz included a Flash Mob Haka in Auckland a week or so back. Check it out:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puXad30DSfg]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRXlmpfKvRo]
Our intrepid Kyle Jones hit the road again this weekend to cover the third and final rugby game between the U.S. College All Stars and the New Zealand Universities squads.
The U.S. were leading the series 2-0 and looking for the sweep. But the Kiwis were having none of that. (For full match report, see posts below.) They took the game 23-20, and head home feeling a lot better about their team. After the video of the haka, Kyle interviewed three of the players for their post-match reactions.
Napier Boys High School
Last year, Napier Boys High School embarked on a 3-week Rugby tour of North America. Part of that tour included travelling to Northern California and playing High School, Club U20 and Academy- age group U20 teams. Their coach, Billy TeHiko, tells us their stories.
Here’s a Kiwi’s view of the Americans we met and the rugby teams we played against. First, by way of introduction, my name is Billy Te Hiko, a volunteer parent coach who fell into coaching 15 years ago.
Napier Boys High School is a public school with boarding facilities in Napier, a city in the Province of Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand and was established in 1872. Napier is famous for its vineyards and art deco buildings, which rose from the ashes during the re-build after the 1931 Napier earthquake. It has a school roll of 1,200 boys, of which 600 play rugby.
This trip involved 30 players (ages 15-17) from throughout the playing grades of the school and 11 support staff and parents.
We came to America from Vancouver. After checking into our hotel, we arrived at Stanford University very late for our first U.S. game, looking for clues as to where we might be playing. After 10 minutes of driving around campus, one of the boys said, “Just look for the rugby posts.” We looked at each other and laughed and promptly found the ground. We decided that that boy was going to go far. We told him he’d get an extra sip of water at halftime for his initiative. Sometimes adults over-complicate the simplest things.
The Napier boys went through their warm-up on the Stanford field.It’s like billiard table to play on. We’re already envious. With the warm-up completed the captains did the coin toss and the boys moved to halfway to do our school Haka.
East Palo Alto and Napier Boys
Having issued the challenge through our Haka to the opposition, the Napier boys looked a bit perplexed when they saw the opposition was made up entirely of Samoan and Tongan players whose families have immigrated to the USA and have a strong community presence in East Palo Alto. One of the Napier supporters said, “This is just like home.”
Continue reading »
