The playing schedule is due to be released later this week for the inaugural South Island Boys’ Schools 1st XV Rugby Competition.
The 11-team event will run in conjunction with the existing Crusaders and Highlanders secondary school competitions.
Nelson College and seven other high schools from the Crusaders region will now play cross-over matches with teams from the Highlanders catchment – Dunedin’s Otago Boys and Kings High Schools, and Southland Boys High.
Timaru Boy's High School, who won the second tier Miles Toyota Championship this season, was set to join the southern competition next season but is now going with the Crusaders region.
A super round is planned over a long weekend in Christchurch where teams will each play two matches which will mean neutral grounds for some.
NC last faced Southland in 2024 when it won the prized Moascar Cup.
There were accusations of elitism from some co-ed schools earlier this year when the boys-only competition was first mooted.
New Zealand Rugby instigated a mediation process.
“There was tension but middle ground was found and now it has landed well,” insists Steve Hart, who is the spokesman for the network of South Island boys schools.
The St Thomas of Canterbury principal confirms the two lowest finishing sides have dropped out of the existing Miles Toyota 1stXV premiership.
The Selwyn Combined 1st XV has been dissolved after one of its member schools Rolleston College decided to pull out and go alone in the Miles Toyota Championship.
Winless Rangiora High School has also opted to play there, which leaves eight high schools in the top league – Nelson College, Marlborough Boys’, Christchurch Boys, St Andrew’s College, St Thomas, Christ’s College, Shirley Boys’ and St Bede’s.
Co-ed school St Andrews isn’t part of the new all-boys set up.
“I think it will be a really tight competition. Our boys are really fizzed up. They are excited about playing teams from outside the Crusaders region,” says Nelson College principal Richard Washington.
“It is more than just sport but coming together as groups, what is good for the boys, being positive, and making life-long friendships off the pitch. The original competition has been tweaked and worked out.”
Richard says the principals driving the new event are aware of the need to get the balance right so attendance and academic performance don’t suffer.
“We have to look after the boys’ welfare, first and foremost.”
