Rotorua stays in touch with the latest tournament

The Rotorua Touch Association received a grant of $6,542 for hireage costs to once again host the Māori Touch National Tournament in Rotorua in December 2022. Photo Credit Ben Fraser

This event is more than just a sports tournament providing competition – it aims to increase Māori participation in Touch and increase Māori representation at National level, but also to help with the development of coaches, referees and administrators. It is also about celebrating, rejuvenating and maintaining iwi and hapu tradition and is an opportunity to recognise those who support and contribute to the sport and the kaupapa of this event.

Spokesperson Kim Watson-Tanga says, “We always want to create a great experience for our Touch Community (players, whanau and the like) who attend any touch events that we host here in our beautiful city of Rotorua. Our non-profit organisation is run entirely by volunteers and most of us have been a part of this group for the past 15 years now.”

“We are a great team and run our competition to suit our members. We run junior and senior competitions which we tailor make to suit all our members and their needs, while still retaining the integrity of our sport. We also support pathways for our large group of Junior Referees who are very fortunate to have the expertise of our senior referees – and of late our most valued and dearly missed Andrew Timoti MNZM.

For our local & weekly competition team registration fee helps to cover the expenses that we incur to run the competition in Rotorua, with additional support coming from Motion Entertainment for our Junior competition. This partnership covers the cost of field flags, touch balls, team gift packs, and participation certificates with vouchers.

Without the continued support of NZCT and Motion Entertainment, we would not be able to create such an awesome environment for our members & community”