Kelston Boys’ High School focused on title defence

They’re both the defending Auckland and National secondary school boys’ rugby league champions, and several of their recent players are already forging successful representative careers, such as Tuimoala Lolohea with the New Zealand Warriors and last year’s captain Israel Ioka now with the Melbourne Storm playing in the NRL U20 competition.

But Kelston Boys’ High School coach Phil Gordon said this year’s team is fully focused on achieving their goals, on the eve of the 2015 SAS College Rugby League Championship competition starting this Wednesday afternoon.

“The boys won nationals in 2013 and 2014 – last year was the first time we have won the Auckland title in a very long time,” said Phil.

“We have talked about trying to go out and win the titles again this year, not just to defend them.

“We are setting our own targets and what we want to achieve in games. We have to accept that everyone wants to beat Kelston, but if we play well we believe the results will come our way.”

On Wednesday, 18 teams, representing 17 schools, will line up across three divisions for the start of the competition. The format for each of the Championship, Plate and Bowl divisions is a five-match round-robin series, followed by semi-finals on 29 July and finals on 5 August.

Phil said the Championship competition over the next several weeks will be tough.

“On any given day if you’re not on, then you can get beaten by anyone.

“The other five teams in our division are going to be equally hard to beat. Our first game is this Wednesday against Southern Cross Campus – they are a proud South Auckland school and I know they will be up for it.”

Phil said it’s good that his players have role models like Lolohea to look up to, and that attitude is the key for players at Kelston and other schools to get noticed.

“Historically we are very proud of the Kelston boys that move on to representative football.

“Most of those scouts and selectors are looking for great attitudes, not just good players. If our boys buy into that and we have that successful culture then I actually think it makes the players more attractive to getting selected higher up.”

This week’s matches are (home teams first, kick-offs at 4.00pm):

Championship: Kelston Boys’ High School v Southern Cross Campus, Mount Albert Grammar School v Otahuhu College, Manurewa High School v St Paul’s College

Plate: Westlake Boys’ High School v Sir Edmund Hillary College, Papatoetoe College v Avondale College Aorere College v Western Springs College

Bowl: Massey High School v James Cook High School, Papakura High School v Tamaki College, Lynfield College v Manurewa B

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