World Footy News

Hawthorn Football Club, home of Kiwi premiership player Trent Croad, in conjunction with AFL New Zealand have established a competition within Secondary Schools in New Zealand, titled the Hawks Cup. Having recently commenced, it is having a massive impact on the development of AFL within New Zealand.

The development of this competition is highly likely to lead to the sanctioning of the sport by New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council. Becoming part secondary sports calendar will allow every secondary school within New Zealand the opportunity to have access to and compete in the Hawks Cup. The Hawthorn Football Club is providing in excess of $50,000 in resources towards and targets participants specifically in years 9 and 10.

This year’s competition will see a number of taster tournaments scheduled over October and November 2009 with teams competing initially in clusters from North Harbour, Waitakere, Auckland, Manukau, Tauranga, Wellington and Porirua. On completion of cluster tournaments, school teams will compete for regional championships including Upper North Island, Lower North Island and Eastern North Island with each regions winner to be awarded the Hawks Cup.

For more on this see Hawks Cup established for Secondary Schools.