By C. Gibb | Posted: Thursday September 8, 2022
Timaru Boys’ High Football has had an excellent season in local, regional and national competitions.
Recently the First XI Football team travelled to Napier for the National Secondary Schools Tournament, the team qualified through the Otago region gaining a wildcard that seeded them 32nd out of 32 teams.
The boys arrived in Napier very sore after narrowly losing a South Canterbury Men’s Cup final to Northern Hearts in extra time 4-3 the previous day. However the boys were not perturbed and looked forward to their first game against Auckland Grammar who finished sixth in the Auckland Schools Competition.
Trailing 1-0 after the first thirty seconds, the boys switched on and started playing some excellent football, this period of dominance was rewarded with a goal to TBHS and we went into the break 1-1. Going 2-1 against the run of play the boys stepped up again and were rewarded with another goal and 2-2, this was the final score and the boys had secured a historic draw against a top Auckland school.
The second game was against Scots College from Wellington, again the boys went down 1-0 early and missed a couple of chances to draw level. Unfortunately the score got away from the boys as they started to tire and lost 5-1. Scots College finished the tournament in third place.
The second day the boys had two more tough games, St Paul’s from Wellington who eventually finished fourth in the tournament (5-1) loss and a crossover game for the bottom 16 of the tournament against St Thomas’s of Canterbury, the boys got off to a flying start and found themselves 5-1 up with fifteen minutes to go. Four well taken goals to Reece Burtenshaw turned the game in our favour, eventually winning 5-3. This meant that the boys could finish no worse than 17-24.
In the plate quarter final the boys played against Whangarei Boys’ who were extremely physical, Timaru Boys’ started the better of the two teams and were rewarded with an early goal to Reece Burtenshaw again went into halftime 1-0 up. The second half was a torrid affair with both teams having chances but not taking them, unfortunately after eight minutes of extra time Whangarei Boys’ scored taking the game to penalties. Jacob Lyne was the hero of the day, calmly saving a penalty and seeing one sail over the bar for TBHS to win 6-4 in the shootout.
Thursday saw TBHS play Christ’s College in the semi final which was to be their roughest game of the tournament, again conceding early put the boys on the back foot but managed to claw their way back into the game with another Reece Burtenshaw goal. Christ’s scored again against the run of play and went into the final ten minutes 2-1. The boys fought valiantly however it was not to be and went down 2-1.
In the boys’ final game which was a milestone moment for two First XI players with Reece playing his 100th game and Caleb Rollo playing his 70th the boys were up against Nelson Boys’. The winner of this game was to finish as second highest South Island School. Unfortunately with tired bodies and the boys conceding some easy goals, the final score was not in our favour (5-0).
Overall it was a highly successful week with the boys finishing 20th in the country which is no mean feat and third highest South Island School. Reece Burtenshaw finished the tournament on seven goals which put him second equal top goal scorer.
Huge thank you to Todd Burtenshaw, Barry Austin and Ross Dawbin for all of their help through the season and all of the families and caregivers that contributed to the successes the boys achieved.
Thanks to the following sponsors that made the trip possible:
Trust Aoraki, RSM Law, HC Partners, Power Farming, Ford Simpson, Linton Distribution
