The All Blacks might wish they had the same policy — games in which the winners aren’t chosen by the actual score, but how other teams score them across the board.
This weekend the 10th — almost annual — New Zealand Junior Rugby Festival, featuring more than 700 under-11, U12 and U13 teams, will be held at the Queenstown Events Centre.
Organiser Tyrone Campbell says it’s their third crack at holding the 10th event, with Covid wreaking havoc for the past two years, which has been ‘‘heartbreaking’’ for the young players who’ve come ‘‘so close to a tour’’, only to have the 2020 and ’21 festivals canned at the last minute.
But the wait will be worth it, he says.
‘‘As you can imagine, these teams that are coming are jumping out of their skins.’’
While there won’t be any international teams coming this year, Campbell says teams from all over the North and South Islands are arriving in the resort, ready for a full weekend of rugby.
However, the winning teams won’t be the ones with the most points on the scoreboard, instead, teams score each other on how opponents are to play, their sportsmanship, management, supporters and players.
‘‘You play five games and you get a good measure of who the teams really enjoyed interacting with and playing,’’ he says.
The last team to win the ‘best and fairest’ at the Taupo NZ Junior Rugby Festival was an U13 team from Long Beach, California, a team he describes as ‘‘devastating’’ on the field and incredible sportspeople off it.
‘‘For example, a player would get injured on the other team and they’d all go down on one knee as the player was attended to.
‘‘After the game they’d go over and meet the supporters and meet the other team and share mementoes and gifts.’’
There’s also an MVP award for each age group, and players will be selected for the paper tournament team, too.
Games run from 9am till about 4.30pm tomorrow and Sunday.
