Rutherford College sent a team of 10 athletes to the Auckland Secondary School Wrestling Champs on Thursday, 28 March 2019. The standard was a lot higher than the novice tournament of the week before and there were some excellent matches on show.

Coach Jo Wilkinson said that it was the best school wrestling tournament that she had been to.

“You can really tell the difference between the beginners and those that have trained for a while – especially in their groundwork” said Wilkinson.

Overall the team did well with half of them taking home gold medals.

Congratulations to Rico, Keisha, Tamia, Ben and Alieta who won their divisions. Special mentions go to Albert and Jury who had some highly entertaining matches.

For most of the team it was their first serious tilt at the sport and hopefully they will continue with it. They have the natural athletic ability and will some solid training under them could do very well.

Special thanks to Club Physical for allowing our kids to train there as well as to coaches Clinton Davies and Steve Robinson. Thanks also to the families that came out and supported.

Full team list: Albert Smit, Jury De’von Reedy, Walt Bowers-Fleming, Josef Chan-Tung, Josef Fray, Rico Martin, Keisha Togo, Tamia Gascoigne, Ben Norouzi and Alieta Liveti.