Ki-o-Rahi Champions
It was my first time playing against other schools. I was super nervous because I was one of the youngest in my team and I didn’t want to let them down. The captain of our team was Andy. Waima wanted to be kia oma, so we started off being Taniwha - that’s the team that hits the tipu and stops the other team from getting tries.
I was starting to get frustrated. It didn’t help that the referee was confusing me. He wasn’t making sense. He didn’t even know the rules which was annoying because
the other team was fending and having two tags on one side. Matua Matt said “you can’t do that! That’s cheating!” He ended up explaining the rules to the referee which made me and my team feel better and not as frustrated as before.
This game was a little intense because they were Kia-Oma and we were Taniwha. So kiaoma has 2 people guarding the tupu. The ki starts in Te Marama. They have to throw the ball to their teammates who are the kaitiaki standing in Te Ao by the tipu. Then they look for people that they can see from their team to throw the ki to. The aim is to hit as many pou as you can before you get ripped. Anyone can run around trying to get the pou but as the Taniwha it was our job to double rip them so we can get a hand over for our team. We’re also trying to stop them from scoring tries. The number of points depends on how many pou you can tag.
So my job was to rip tags from the other team. I thought I did good. I got one double rip for my team which helped Marta, Helam and Andy hit the tipu and get us points. When we were ki-oma my job was to hit the pou. I hated it when they were chasing me because I was scared they would rip me or get the ki off me. I still got the try which was cool. “Shot Sally!” I remember hearing Matua Matt yell out.
We ended up winning. The score was 11-1 to Tautoro.
I enjoyed playing Ki-O-Rahi. It was an awesome day out competing against other schools. I also liked working with my team. We ended up coming first overall.
By Sally Matene
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