Hawks Cup established for Secondary Schools

Hawthorn Football Club in conjunction with AFL New Zealand have established a competition within Secondary Schools in New Zealand entitled the Hawks Cup.

In its inaugural season, the competition has already had a massive impact on the development of AFL within New Zealand with the likely sanctioning of the sport by New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council.

View Hawks Cup Promotional Poster

This will place the sport on the secondary sports calendar allowing every secondary school within New Zealand, the opportunity to have access to and compete in the Hawks Cup, a competition that Hawthorn Football Club provides in excess of $50,000 in resources towards and targets participants specifically in years 9 and 10.

This years competition will see a number of taster tournaments scheduled over October and November 2009 with teams competing initially in clusters from North Harbour, Waitakere, Auckland, Manukau, Tauranga, Wellington and Porirua.

On completion of cluster tournaments, school teams will compete for regional championships including Upper North Island, Lower North Island and Eastern North Island with each regions winner to be awarded the Hawks Cup.

2009 Hawks Cup Draw for all regions

Tournament Information

Rule Modifications

All participants will receive a branded equipment kit courtesy of Hawthorn FC and will also vie for selection for the New Zealand Under 15 squad to be selected at the completion of the tournament.

Sports and Recreation New Zealand, Regional Sports Trusts and College organisations are supportive of the concept which falls into alignment with SPARC's new Kiwisport initiative which targets "More Kiwi kids in sports and recreation."

Details on Kiwisport

The value in a high performance entity such as Hawthorn FC, underpinning the development of the AFL code within New Zealand at a grass roots level is a fantastic leap for AFL New Zealand in its aim of making AFL a New Zealand game.

AFL New Zealand is hopeful that the new initiative is as successful as the secondary schools competition created by the Hawthorn FC in Tasmania that has seen participation numbers within the organised format increase from zero to 2500 participants in under three years.