Bay paddlers back with gold
Paddle Black Graham leads charge as local athletes enjoy medal haul at Oceania champs in Australia
Talk Hawke’s Bay canoe polo success at Oceania Championship level and it doesn’t get much better than this. Twenty-five Bay players were in action at last weekend’s champs in Penrith, near Sydney. Seven of them returned with gold medals, another six with silver and four more with bronze.
Paddle Black Mitch Graham, who won his fourth gold at this level, is adamant this haul can be improved upon once the four-pitch Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports Park facility is completed.
“We’re almost there with our fundraising. Everything going to plan, construction will start at the end of the year and there’s a good chance the 2021 Oceania Champs will be staged here in the Bay,” Graham said.
“It’s going to be an amazing facility which will give our code a lot more exposure. It means our players will be able to train more regularly all year round which will prepare us better for international events like world championships and Oceania championships.
“At the moment, many of our players are relying on indoor pools for training and they usually can’t get access until after 8pm which provides a few challenges,” Graham explained.
A 26-year-old electrical engineer for Unison, Graham, who first played for the New Zealand senior team in 2015, was impressed with how the Paddle Blacks performed across the Tasman.
“We played the Aussies three times and lost to them only once in pool play. We beat them 3-2 in the final,” Graham recalled.
“We were the only Kiwi team the Aussies didn’t allow to play in the previous weekend’s Aussie state nationals because they didn’t want to get beaten on consecutive weekends,” he quipped.
A member of the Paddle Blacks
team who finished fifth at last year’s world champs in Canada, Graham pointed out last week’s expedition was a good building block for next year’s world champs in Rome for the team.
He was equally as delighted with the progress made by the Hawke’s Bay players in the youth teams in Penrith.
“Hawke’s Bay has always been strong at youth level. Once we get that facility out at the sports park, we will only get stronger,” he added.
St John’s College Year 13 student Toby Mills, 17, was one of five Hawke’s Bay players in the gold medalwinning under-18 Paddle Blacks team.
Fellow St John’s player Ben Evans, Hastings Boys’ High School’s Ben Colman, who captained the team, Karamu High School’s Andre Carter and Havelock North High School’s Adriaan Steyn were the others.
They were unbeaten on the way to winning the Australian state nationals, which were played prior to the Oceania Championships and provided an ideal rehearsal for the Kiwi teams, apart from Graham’s.
Their only loss at the Oceania Champs was against the Australia Masters team which wasn’t eligible for the gold medal in their age group.
In their all-New Zealand final the Paddle Blacks under-18s beat the Paddle Blacks B under-18s 6-4. Two Bay players, Kalder Pritchard-Woods and Adam Brookes, were in the B team.
The best indication of how impressive Mills and co were was their 7-1 drubbing of the Aussie under-18 team on the first day of pool play.
“We gelled really well,” Mills recalled.
He is grateful for the guidance of Hawke’s Bay-based coach Riaan Steyn, a former Namibia representative.
While the Aussie trip was Mills’ first experience of New Zealand representation those in the know are confident it won’t be the last.
“Now I’ve had a taste I want more and I want to carry on to the senior ranks. I intend to take a gap year next year so I can focus on making the New Zealand under-21 team for the world championships in Rome,” Mills explained.
He started playing canoe polo when he was a Year 8 student at Twyford School. Mills was a member of the national title-winning St John’s College senior team this year and junior team in 2016.
Hawke’s Bay’s Greer Edilson and Hayley Cameron were captain and vice-captain respectively of the under-21 Paddle Ferns who took silver at the championships.