St Bernard’s abuzz with sports vigour
Andrew Cavill is keen to put St Bernard’s College on the sporting map.
Since becoming the director of sport late last year, he has set about rebranding the school.
With Year 7 and 8 students, the school’s roll is 660 and he believes that there is a lot of untapped natural talent.
The boys tend to play a lot of codes and in order to improve results and commitment, they have been encouraged to focus on one winter sport and one summer sport.
The tendency to play numerous sports means they didn’t always train and often lacked commitment, he said.
‘‘There is a lot of talent in the school but it is all about harnessing it in the right direction.’’
He was encouraging the boys to think about their attitude and commitment, and how they could individually improve.
As part of the rebranding, he had introduced a training singlet for all codes and was reorganising their sporting uniforms. The singlet created a real ‘‘buzz’’ around the school and gave the boys a sense of pride, he said.
To make a long-term change Cavill was aware that he needed to target the younger boys. Being able to make a change with the intermediate-aged boys allowed him to drive the change from the bottom up.
The boys’ senior touch team is a good example of the talent in the school. It recently came second in the regional finals to qualify for the nationals in Auckland later this year.
Manager Christopher Hart said the boys had been together since intermediate.
They have always had talent but with a better attitude this year, the results had improved. At the regionals they lost their first game but instead of giving up they fought hard and achieved some good results to finish second.
Hart believed they could do well at the nationals. ‘‘I am hoping for a place in the top eight.’’
The team includes a host of rep players including Te Aorere Wanoa, Te Kirimaia Wanoa, Connor McLeod, Bree Henderson, Nathan Stirling, Ben Ernst, Noah Lindstrom, Quentin Daniel and Wyatt So’otaga.
Cavill hoped the changes he was putting in place would see a lot more good results.