Skill and Speed Beat Size!

By William Martin.
On Friday the 6th of August the Year 3 and 4 Rippa Rugby team went to Paengaroa Park to play in the Bay Wide for our school Saint Thomas More.

Mr. Horan picked us up at school. Me, Andrew, Oliver, Daniel, Jamie, Taine and Kiahi went with him. When we got there we started setting the tent up swiftly with Mr. Webster and Mr. Horan. After we had finished setting up we trained by running around the field slowly passing the ball up and down. Then we practiced ripping the tags and yelling “Rip” loudly. It really works in a game.

First we played Papamoa School Andrew and I knew three people Stephan, George and Lee. They all play soccer for Papamoa Marlins. We started with the ball and then Kiahi passed the ball to Daniel then we got ripped six times then we had to hand the ball over. After a couple of rips, Stephan scored the first try by a strong run. Then Kiahi passed the ball to Daniel, he then side stepped brilliantly to score our first try for the tournament. About five minutes later somebody in Papamoa School scored a blinding try by running up the line. Then after about four rips Oliver scored a fantastic try for S.T.M School.

The STM Sports asked Daniel what it felt like when you won Bay Wide. Daniel said. “Fantastic because we won the very first time for our School in a tournament.” The Times also asked Daniel what was the most challenging part of the day for you. Daniel replied “Playing Papamoa,running and passing.”

In the Quarter Finals we competed against Otonga. We scored five wonderful trys and they scored 2 trys. We scored five great trys most of them were by running up the line. Later in the semi finals we competed against Malfroy and we won 5-3. Most of our tries were by running up the line. The try scorers were by Oliver, Daniel, Kiahi and Andrew.

Then we had a half an hour break (We didn’t train) we had heaps to eat and drink and we had a huge talk about the final against Fairhaven. Eventually we faced them in the final and we won 4-3. W e scored fabulous trys and we won BayWide for the first time ever for S.T.M.

I really enjoyed the Rippa Rugby Tournament because we came first. Maybe next time we can win against Papamoa. I felt really excited because we won BayWide.

Supportive Nine Year Old Amelia

By Ella Phayer and Alice Jeffries

A student in Room 7 called Amelia has been very supportive to the Tauranga Renal Unit, so she had the opportunity to be in the Bay of Plenty Times.
A fundraising effort to make life more comfortable for dialysis patients has found a little champion in bighearted Amelia Riordan.
Despite having never been able to save more than $10 in her life, the selfless 9-year-old has managed to raise just over $500 towards new TVs, DVD players and headsets for patients at the Tauranga renal unit. With 28 patients on its books, the hospital-based unit is operating at full capacity, providing dialysis for patients three times a week for four to six hours at a time.