Matchday Scoring Highlights: Wellington U16s v Wellington Co-ed Schools U18s

The Wellington Co-ed Schools U18s is a new representative team, with players selected from those Co-ed schools who are mostly playing in the non-Premiership grades in the College Sport Wellington competitions.

A number of high profile players have come through and risen to the top of the game from these schools in the modern era, such as TJ Perenara (Mana College), Cory Jane (Heretaunga College), Brad Shields (Taita College), Jeremy Thrush (Hutt Valley High School), John Schwalger (Bishop Viard College) and Alapati Leuia (Porirua College).

Highlights of their inaugural match against the Wellington U16s below:

The U16s team won the match 49-15, scoring seven converted tries.

The run of play was often much closer than that, the U16s having the benefit of already being together for several weeks and playing two previous matches. The U16s led 21-5 at halftime, courtesy of scoring their third try on halftime.

The Co-ed team closed the deficit to 21-10 with the first try of the second half after a break and a subsequent chargedown try. The u16s rallied and scored another four tries.

This coming Saturday, the U16s play the Manawatu U16s in their opening match of the 2026 Hurricanes Division 1 U16s tournament. The remainder of the tournament is in Whanganui in early October.

The Co-ed side plays its second and final game in Patea on Saturday against the Taranaki U18s.

Photos of the match below: