Kia ora koutou, New Zealand Handball whānau!
A fairly brief update this month, as we focus on planning for the year ahead. Some admin as well as some international action to report on, plus one last high performance treat to squeeze in before Christmas for you all to mark in your calendars.
Women’s Junior and Youth teams do NZ proud in New Caledonia
The handballing highlight of the past month has to be the performance of our girls at the Oceania IHF Trophy qualifiers held in mid-October. For a couple of squads dominated by players with minimal competitive handball experience, and a new-look coaching unit, they performed with distinction.
A couple of major achievements to bookend the tournament – a stunning win for the Juniors (Under 19s) over the Australian Juniors to open their tournament, and a nail-biter for the Youth (Under 17) team to finish off their campaign against Tahiti. The official result was a controversial draw on the scoresheet, but the girls had a triumph on the court for them all to celebrate. Congratulations to all involved – New Zealand Handball is super-proud of you all! Encouraging to see the future of the female game in New Zealand looking so strong.
2023 IHF Trophy Oceania - Youth Womens, 3rd place
2023 IHF Trophy Oceania - Junior Womens, 3rd place
Regional Meet
Thanks to those who tuned into the regional stakeholders meeting held at the end of October. There’s some good stuff happening around the country, with a real focus on growing depth at a junior level.
We are currently gathering feedback on a proposed national league initiative we are looking at running in 2024. Hopefully we will be in a position to announce something definitive next month, as we look to finalise the national schedule for the year ahead as much as we can. A key piece of feedback we have taken on board is the importance of needing to get tournament dates locked in as early as possible to help people’s travel plans, and we will do our best to deliver on that.
Strategic restructure
As signalled last month, one of the early tasks of your Executive Committee after each AGM is the allocation of portfolio responsibilities. This year we have decided to revisit the way we structure things, to improve the effectiveness of our delivery and spread the load. I know you are all hanging out for the outcome of that process, but you will just have to wait until next month’s update!
Exhibition Game 10 December – NZ Men v Wellington Barbarians selection
The final piece of high performance action for the year is scheduled for Ākau Tangi sports stadium in Wellington on Sunday 10 December at 11am. The New Zealand Men’s team will take on an invitational selection in an Exhibition game, which will be the closest thing we have had to a test match on home soil for four years. We have booked seating to cater for an audience and media, so come along and show your support!
This will be the New Zealand team’s last hit out before heading to Bahrain as Oceania’s sole representative at the Asian Handball Championships. We have drawn two of Asian Handball powerhouses in our pool – Iran and Korea – as well as China, who are always hard to beat. It will be a mammoth challenge for our boys, but it will also be the most internationally experienced New Zealand squad ever assembled, so we are hopeful of pulling off an upset. The cost per player for the trip is well over $10,000, so if you would like to help them out, here is a link to their Givealittle page:
Support the New Zealand Men's National Handball Team at the Asia Champs 2024!
That’s it for this month. Great to see Beach Handball back underway as summer starts to threaten, but more on that next month.
Ngā mihi,