Then there were . . . 18 Boycott grows against St Kents
The boycott of St Kentigern College’s first XV rugby team has extended with the central North Island’s Super Eight schools refusing to play the Auckland school.
Ten Auckland schools had already bandied together to shun St Kents because of a recruitment policy they feel is unethical in bolstering their playing stocks. That has effectively seen St Kents locked out of competing in next year’s Auckland 1A competition.
But if they were to look for games a little further south, they are out of luck because, after hearing of the boycott up north, all sides in the Super Eight competition have supported that move, following a meeting in the past couple of days.
The Super Eight is a competitive league comprising Hamilton Boys’ High School, Palmerston North Boys’ High School, Hastings Boys’ High School, Rotorua Boys’ High School, New Plymouth Boys’ High School, Gisborne Boys’ High School, Napier Boys’ High School and Tauranga Boys’ College.
While those teams wouldn’t normally come up against St Kents during a season, if they were approached for a game they would all be declining the offer.
It’s understood their refusal to play will mirror however long those Auckland schools continue their boycott.
‘‘As a Super Eight entity we’ve unanimously agreed to support our Auckland counterparts,’’ Palmerston North Boys’ High School rector David Bovey said.
‘‘If they were looking for fixtures, we wouldn’t play them.’’
While he said it was disappointing something like this had happened, Bovey felt it was a good thing people were now talking about it.
‘‘There’s been rumours going around about what this school’s been doing and what that school’s been doing. I’m hoping what comes out of this is that some schools change doing things.’’
Gisborne Boys’ High principal Andrew Turner said they were ‘‘keen to support a fairer, more transparent, egalitarian system’’.
‘‘It’s fair to say the landscape of 1st XV rugby’s changed in the last five to 10 years. As traditional boys schools, we’re just saying ‘hey, there’s got to be some lines in the sand’.
‘‘We’re not the United States of America, we don’t have massive pools of kids and money and all the way we’re the other rubbish. We’re New Zealand, and we’ve survived for a long time and put ourselves at the top of the rugby world just by having homegrown talent.’’
For Tauranga Boys’ principal Robert Mangan, the matter is one which hits close to home.
‘‘Being a school that has lost up-and-coming players at different levels of rugby, it’s good that they have been called out on the issue,’’ he said.
His latest example is Carlos Price, who was in the Tauranga
1st XV in Year 11, before moving on to St Kents for his final two years of school. He now plays for Wellington in the Mitre 10 Cup, has represented New Zealand Under-20s and is in the Hurricanes’ wider setup.
Bovey said the lack of perspective people had around school sport was ‘‘disturbing’’.
‘‘People are competitive and we all want our kids to do well and have the opportunity to compete at a high level. But I think some have sold their soul to do it.
‘‘The kids who have worked their backsides off from year nine and finally get their chance in the senior school, and your place has been taken by a kid who’s come in for one year, I just think that’s palpably unfair.’’