A Terrific Time for Tupa'i at the Touch World Cup
By Administration | Posted: Tuesday July 23, 2024
Our inspiring and talented Year 11 Dean, Naomi Tupa'i has been overseas participating in the Touch World Cup, and we would like to share with you Naomi's experience of being involved in this amazing campaign.
It has been a massive 10 days at the Touch World Cup!
We started on Friday 12th July when the NZ contingent was welcomed to Lincoln Hall at Nottingham University with a mihi whakatau. We then had a two day training camp with blocks of training and practice games against other countries over the next two days. This was a great chance to get in our final preparations and shake off the jet lag!
The World Cup began on Monday 15th July with an opening ceremony. It was amazing to see the 29 countries and their respective contingents in uniform with all of the flags waving. Some games began on this day however we did not start playing until Tuesday.
Our pool play went from Tuesday until Friday. We played China, Chile, Ireland, Cook Islands, Ireland, Italy and Fiji in our pool play matches before facing France in our quarter final and Germany in the semi final. We won all of these games and grew together over the week. There was lots of recovery (ice baths/massages/needling), team bonding, walk throughs, meditations and meetings in between all of this.
Our final was on Sunday against Australia at 12pm. We had a great game against them and came very close with a final score of 10 - 9 earning us a silver medal. Definitely one of the most amazing experiences that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of. Lots of new learnings, memories and connections that will last forever.
Naomi Tupa'i - Year 11 Dean
If you would like to watch Naomi in action click on the links below;
A link to the final:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9UpfRyApQ
Link to our game against the Cook Islands:
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