St Pat’s Silverstream, St Mary’s, Scots College and Naenae take home the sevens silverware at CSW 7s

• By Steven White
• Photos by Andy McArthur

St Pat’s Silverstream, St Mary’s College, Scots College and host school Naenae College won the silverware at today’s 2026 College Sport Wellington Sevens Tournament.

Silverstream defended their Open Boys title and their B team won the Open Boys Bowl, St Mary’s defended their Open Girls title (from two years ago), Scots College won the U15 Girls and Boys and Naenae College the Open Boys Plate.

The tournament was played in mostly fine but very windy conditions, which made it tough out there at ground level for players, officials and supporters alike. The north-westerly wind that blew down the ground on both main fields was particularly strong in the afternoon.

This failed to stop the exciting rugby, with a number of close matches. This was a theme of most of the finals, which were all close.

In the Open Boys final, St Pat’s Silverstream beat Wellington College 22-21 to retain the Christian Cullen Cup. The Stanley Solomon coached Wellington College side went close to winning and the final was only decided in the closing stages of the second half. Silverstream, playing into the wind, broke through and the barnstorming Shae Taitua scored the winning try to complete his hat-trick of tries in the final. Wellington College had led 14-10 at halftime and then 21-15 after Liam Phelps had scored again for them.

The 2026 First XV Top 4 school then dug deep and pulled out the victory. Taitua was our Player of the Tournament for his three tries in the final and also a strong semi-final performance in Stream’s 40-10 win over HIBS and some eye-catching play earlier in the day. Other players to standout included First XV captain Ryder Thompson and playmaker Jaxon Ropitini.  Fletcher Cooper played in the midfield and produced several nice touches and plays and scored a try in the final.

For Wellington College, Connor Gregor, Z’Kedeus Schwalger (especially in Wellington College’s 34-5 semi-final win over Rongotai College), Phelps and Ben Willocks all played well.

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In the Open Boys Plate Final, Naenae College, featuring some St Bernard’s College players, beat Scots College on the last play. Scores were all locked up at 17-17, but Naenae launched a last-ditch audacious attack that was started from a scrum on their own side of halfway and soon broke through to win the Plate decider 24-17.

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St Pat’s Silverstream’s B team won the Bowl final, beating Hutt Valley High School 17-12 in that match.

As noted above, pool play in the Open Boys section was fast and furious and it came alive at the Cup quarter-final stage.

Whilst Silverstream and Wellington College cruised through with wins over Wainuiomata High School (43-0) and Naenae College (41-5) respectively, the other two top eight fixtures were tight.

HIBS, who were 2024 champions, beat Scots College 33-26. Scots were leading this one on field one, but HIBS roared back into during the second half and two tries to Ben Park and one to Frankie Treavey sealed the win on fulltime.

The other quarter-final had seen Mana College beat Rongotai College 15-10 on the field but for the result to be reversed for a Mana player registration infraction.

The Open Girls tournament for the Kat Whata-Simpkins Cup was a four team tournament, with two St Mary’s teams, Aotea College and the New Zealand Performance Academy (NZPA) the teams entered.

It was competitive amongst the leading three teams, St Mary’s A, Aotea and NZPA, who cancelled each other out in the round-robin. In the final match of this section, NZPA beat St Mary’s 17-10.

The NZPA team had also beaten Aotea 22-10 in the round-robin and they met again in the semi-finals. In this match, both sides scored three tries but NZPA won 17-15, courtesy of them kicking the first conversion.

St Mary’s A had accounted for St Mary’s B 47-0 in the other semi-final over on field 2.

On to the Open Girls final and St Mary’s A beat NZPA 31-19 in a match was only decided late in the second half after tit-for-tat scoring throughout.

NZPA had scored two tries to one to lead 14-5 midway through the first half, playing with the wind. But St Mary’s roared back to take a 19-14 halftime lead with tries to their Senior A netball captain Foi Lemana and to Wellington Pride wing Ana Kerr.

St Mary’s opened the second half with a long sequence of play that led to their third straight try, scored by Wellington Pride player Paige Lilo. Lilo was playing hooker and was our Open Girls Player of the Tournament for her high workrate and effective touches all tournament. Her try made it 26-14 to St Mary’s.

NZPA then hit back with the next try to close the gap to 26-19 and it was all on. But another breakout late in the game put St Mary’s ahead and they held on to win over the final minute or so of running play.

For NZPA, the Ben-Tupuola sisters were strong in the forwards, while playmakers Ella Mear and captain Emily Forster were strong performers all day.

The Girls U15s was just a three-team tournament, with Scots College prevailing in the final over Sacred Heart College to win 17-5. Scots had earlier beaten both Sacred Heart and St Mary’s in pool play.

The U15 Boys competition for the Roderick Solo Cup saw Scots College defeating St Pat’s Silverstream 4 tries to 3 (exact score pending).

The Jackson Garden-Bachop coached Scots team won the U15 final by breaking a halftime deadlock and scoring two consecutive tries early in the second half playing into the gusty conditions.

These two tries pushed their advantage out to 4 tries to 2, before Silverstream came back and scored a neat kick and chase try. But they ran out of time and the fulltime whistle couldn’t save them.

Scots had beaten Mana College 22-5 in their semi-fiinal while Silverstream had beaten their B side 36-5.

Wellington College won the U15s Plate final, beating Naenae College 26-14.

As always, the tournament was well run by College Sport Wellington and by the Wellington Rugby Referees’ Association, with assistance from two visiting referees from Wairarapa-Bush.

The next school tournament on the calendar is the Hurricanes Schools, which is at Feilding High School on 7 November.

In the Open Boys, finalists Silverstream and Wellington College have qualified for the National Condor 7s at Mt Maunganui in December with this win, with other spots up for grabs at this tournament including one potentially for St Pat’s Town should they take up the opportunity of entering, while St Mary’s have qualified for the Condors Nationals with this win.