A new touch competition aiming to grow and promote the sport of touch in NZ, today elite touch teams from across the North Island converged at Auckland's Gallaher Park for the three week inaugural Elite Touch competition.
Elite Touch is the new breeding ground for NZ's best touch athletes.
Ani Nock - Kaitākaro Kapa Freeflow says, “We're really excited to play quality games against other tough women’s team so we got our club together - our men’s and women's team, and brought them up to play some tough quality games so we can learn and develop our young players.”
More than five provincial clubs are taking part in the intense event. The aim, to develop the sport and strengthen the skill set among New Zealand players and clubs.
Matangaro Paerau – Kaiwhakahaere says, “You get to summer and that's probably the only time you get to play touch, unless you're playing another sport like Turbo Touch which you can play that indoors, but for the outdoor we're trying to help our NZ representatives by building them up from the ground up.”
The hope is to also provide opportunities for talented Māori touch athletes by giving them a taste of what to expect at international level.
Paerau says, “A lot of our players are Māori and not necessarily able to play at an elite level overseas like when it gets to the world cup and things like that so this a chance for them to play at that high level, play against the best clubs in NZ at a more affordable price.”
Touch rugby is a popular sport to Māori, and at World cup level it's usually a final between New Zealand and Australia. The organisers believe this event could be the beginning of something new.
The elite touch League, is a pathway to making this sport professional, where we can compete similar to the 9's are run, we'd love for people to come to a field to watch the best players in NZ play touch.
The event concludes next weekend, with the best teams going head to head in the finals.
Paerau says, “It's the first time we've run this competition ever, it's the first of its kind that we know of where players can play at an elite level but for their clubs rather than for their iwi, their hapu, their region or their country.”