South Island school’s ‘magic round’ rugby aims to build grounded youth
A South Island rugby project to help young players build ties with players outside their teams aims to stop them falling out of study or employment in the future.
Photo: Supplied / Kees Terrell
A South Island 1st XV rugby “magic round” is being credited for breaking down geographical and social barriers for young men, a Christchurch school principal says.
Inspired by the popular concepts seen in both the NRL and Super Rugby Pacific, the two-day showcase over the long weekend was part of the inaugural South Island Boys’ Schools Network (SIBSN) 1st XV competition.
The weekend kicked off with five games at Christchurch’s St Bede’s College on Saturday, with a further four fixtures at the same venue slated for King’s Birthday.
St Thomas of Canterbury College principal Steve Hart said the centralised format meant less travel for geographically isolated schools.
“We wanted to provide opportunity for all the boys across all the schools to connect and having them all at the same venue playing gave us the opportunity to break down some of the barriers across schools,” he said.
“Being able to have a centralized magic round here in Christchurch meant we’re able to just take away some of those geographic boundaries, where we could have [Southland Boys High School] playing [Nelson College] in a centralised location made those things a little bit easier.”
Eleven school 1st XVs are part of the new competition, including teams from Christchurch, Nelson, Dunedin and Invercargill.
It is the first initiative under the sport and culture principle of the recently set up SIBSN.
The network was established last year in response to “alarming” data coming from other parts of the globe.
Photo: Supplied / Kees Terrell
A 2025 report titled Lost Boys shone a light on the state of young men in the United Kingdom who had not benefited from positive role models.
“Some of the data there, particularly around young men that were not in education, training or employment, was quite remarkable,” Hart said.
“That probably challenged us a little bit to think, ‘jeepers, if that’s the state of play up there, we’d be a wee bit naive to think that some of those trends [won’t] start to resurface down in our part of the world.”
Players, coaches and school leaders attended a gala dinner on Saturday night where former All Black captain Kieran Read was a guest speaker.
With players seated according to their respective positions, friendships were quickly being forged between on-field rivals.
St Bede’s 1st XV captain George Kneebone said although teams were competitive on the park, players from opposing teams shared common ground.
“Everyone wants to win on the day, but off the field everyone’s friends and at the end of the day can sit down and have some food and have a good yarn and forget about what’s just happened on the field. So it’s pretty cool.”
Photo: Supplied
Hart said some of the prevailing messages from the 127-test legend were on the money.
“Sometimes we do get a wee bit carried away with pathways to a certain degree. There will be a very small minority of young men that might move into professional environments, but the reality is the majority won’t.”
Hart said the key message from Read was for the players to enjoy the sport and connecting with both people in their team and the people they play against.
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