Waka Ama

St Paul’s College is proud to celebrate the outstanding achievements of Anthony Fransham (Year 9) and Naea Williams (Year 10) at the NZ Waka Ama Sprint National Championships, held at Lake Karapiro from January 12-18, 2025.

Both students, paddling for the Pineula Waka Ama Club, dedicated their summer holidays to intensive training, and their hard work paid off with impressive results.

Anthony’s Achievements:

🥉 Bronze – Intermediate Men’s V1 500m (singles) – third-best in New Zealand in his first-ever nationals race

🥈 Silver – J16 V6 500m (team)

🥈 Silver – J16 V12 500m (team)

Naea’s Achievements:

🥇 Gold – J16 V12 500m (team)

🥈 Silver – J16 V6 500m (team)

Samoa Under 19 Women’s World Cup Cricket Team

St Paul’s College was honoured to have the opportunity to host the Samoan Under 19 Women’s cricket team for three practice matches against an Auckland Under 19 selection. Auckland fielded a strong team featuring several members of the NZ Under 19 team, and the bulk Auckland team that won the recent New Zealand championship.

These matches were part of the Samoan team’s final preparations before heading off to the World Cup being held in Malaysia, which started on the 18th of January.

With the Samoa team featuring members based on the Islands, New Zealand and Australia, this was the first time the full squad had come together, and for many, the first chance to play on a grass wicket – important preparation given matches in Malaysia will be played on grass wickets.

With most grass wickets in Auckland unavailable due to the Christmas/New year holiday shutdown, Auckland Cricket reached out to St Paul’s to see if we could make our grass wicket available. Thanks to the goodwill of Headmaster, Mr Simento, the grounds team at Turftech, and the St Paul’s cricket community, this was made possible.

While the results weren’t important, two of the three games went to the final over, with the third also not decided until late in the final innings. The players from both team’s commented that they had learnt a significant amount from the games.

Auckland Cricket were particularly appreciative of the school’s support, with Astrid van Uden, Auckland Cricket’s Community Manager for Women’s and Girls Cricket, commenting:

 “A big thank you from myself, the Auckland players and the Samoan Women's Team for hosting us this week at St Paul's College. We had two fantastic days of cricket and it was a lot of fun! It was amazing to be able to help support Team Samoa as they prepared for the World Cup in Malaysia, and we wouldn't have been able to do it without your support and the use of the grass pitch. “

St Paul’s have strong connections to Samoan cricket, with students Solomon Nash and Arthur Gabriel respectively representing them in men’s and under 17 World Cup qualification tournaments last year.

For more information on the Samon team’s stunning run to qualify for the World Cup click here.