School News

Last night, the HBHS and St Paul's Collegiate 1st XI hockey teams played each other for the Matt Allen Memorial Trophy, which is played every year to honour the memory of Matt who was a 1st XI hockey player when he was tragically killed in a car accident in 1998. As so often happens in this fixture, previous results counted for nothing, and the game was a fiercely contested encounter which HBHS eventually won 1 - 0 thanks to a goal by Jonty Keaney in the final seven minutes of the match. St Paul's weathered wave after wave of HBHS attacking play with some extraordinary defence, which eventually resulted in a St Paul's player being sent off for continual infringing. HBHS maintained their discipline in the face of St Paul's admirable determination, and both teams are looking forward to meeting again in two weeks time in the final of the first round of competition. Congratulations to both teams.    

(Pictured at right - Nic Woods from the HBHS 1st XI on the attack)       

Irrepressible Head of Music Adrian Botting led an enthusiastic group of students, staff and parents through a 24 Hour Musicathon this weekend, to raise cash for a music trip to Fiji in June.  The event began at 6.00pm on Friday and involved musical performances, rehearsals and ‘events’ which attracted audiences of up to seventy people at different times.

The Captain of Arts, Tahi Fu (Year 13) commented:

The idea was to raise money for the trip to Fiji, to have a really good time, and to raise awareness about the idea that Music is a really cool aspect of school culture. We printed out fliers and sent them around, used word of mouth and created a Facebook event which brought people in.

On Friday we had around fifty to sixty people in the room, including quite a lot of parents.  This increased and decreased as the night went on – we had more than a full house at different stages which was really great.  We started off with the Gypsy Pickers last night, then moved on to some single items, then Dinosaur Goes Rawr (an HBHS band), and The Good Fun, featuring Leroy Clampitt.  After that we had smaller items including myself, Tyler Campbell and Leroy by himself.  We had a very cool electronic music demonstration by Jeremy Mayall (HBHS Old Boy and previous member of the Music Faculty) and Mr Peters (current HBHS teacher). I performed at 3.00am – I did a couple of songs and then I think I fell asleep. We got up at 7.00am to do a Choir performance for an hour, and there were more solo and ensemble performances that night.

HBHS rowers are making very good progress in their 2013 Maadi Cup campaign, with 9 crews winning gold medals at the North Island Secondary Schools Rowing competition, held at Lake Karapiro last weekend.  The successful crews were the Under 15 eight, the Under 16 eight, the Under 17 eight, and the Under 18 eight, along with the Under 15 four, the Under 16 four, the Under 18 four, the Under 17 coxed quad and the Under 18 pair.  The Under 15 quad and the Novice four won silver medals, and the Lightweight four won bronze.  In the B finals, the Under 17 double won their event.  This strong performance across the board meant that Hamilton Boys’ High School secured the Derbyshire Shield which is awarded to the champion North Island rowing secondary school.  Congratulations to all of the crews, coaches and supporters, and the very best of luck to these crews at the upcoming Maadi Regatta, to be held later this month.

Six members of the champion HBHS Under 18 Eight have been selected to trial for the New Zealand Junior Rowing Squad later this year. These students are: Ryan Rasmussen, Alex Bardoul, Drikus Conradie, Tom Healey, Jarrod Gwynne, and coxswain Ben McPherson. Congratulations and best wishes to these boys on this wonderful achievement.

Congratulations to the HBHS Rowing Crews who competed in the North Island Club Championships, held this past weekend at Lake Karapiro.  The teams performed very well in winning all of the A finals they qualified for, as well as winning all of the Novice events they raced in.  Of particular note were Jacob Prier and Rhys Bain who came away with four gold medals apiece.  The Under 18's rowed extremely well to notch up a third place in the Premier Eight, soon after winning both the Under 19 Fours and the Club Eight.  Congratulations once again to the crews on their efforts and to all of the parents and coaches for their invaluable support as the 2014 Rowing Season begins.  A full list of results and crews is attached below:

/uploads/file/SUNDAY%20FINALS%20RESULTS%20NI%20Rowing%20Club%20Champs.doc

Hamilton Boys’ High School 1^st XV Rugby team are National School Boy Rugby champions. The final competition game (against St Bede’s) was played in Rotorua yesterday, in front of a focused and expectant crowd.

The teams were quite evenly balanced, but HBHS was particularly composed and clinical. It was apparent that the boys had a specific game plan, and understood that they were to adhere to this throughout the game. The St Bede’s players aquitted themselves well, but were starved of the ball. Because of this, in the minutes after HBHS scored, it was clear that St Bede’s were going to struggle to respond. HBHS eliminated any risky play from their game, and were more assured of the win at each encounter. They responded to new moves from the opposition with cool actions and a disciplined approach. The final score, 17 – 0, is a testament to the effectiveness of the strategies employed by the team and coaching staff.