Rugby has been played at Sacred Heart College since its opening in 1903 with the overarching philosophy to ensure that every Rugby player at the school achieves to their potential and focuses on becoming a strong student athlete. Every student will be given the opportunity to play Rugby to the highest level of which they are capable.
In the last 15 years Rugby has started to realise its potential at all levels: from restricted weight grades, where we have always been traditionally strong with consistent contenders and winner for semi-finals and finals, to the improvement in the open-weight Rugby categories. Allied with this has been a marked improvement in 1st XV results particularly since 2011 where Sacred Heart has contested the Auckland 1A semi-finals every year (bar 2013 and 2021), contested three 1A Finals (2016, 2017 and 2023) and were finally crowned Auckland 1A Champions in 2023. This has meant that more of our top players are gaining exposure at a high level and the very best have been selected to represent New Zealand at schoolboy level.
Rugby is offered in the Sports Institute in Years 8 to 10. Competition for places is extremely tough with each student having to trial every year to retain their spot; students are also required to continue to achieve well in other areas of school life.
In the past five years, we have had 20 players contracted to under 20 Rugby academies across New Zealand. This is wonderful from a Rugby perspective but is also good that these players will receive support for ongoing study at a tertiary level.
Sacred Heart College rugby statistics:
- 24 All Blacks
- 2 Wallabies
- 1 Welsh international
- 4 Tongan national team players
- 4 Samoan national team players
- 16 Junior All Blacks
- 26 New Zealand Colts
- 11 Maori All Blacks
- 25 New Zealand Schools representatives
- 3 New Zealand sevens
- 10 New Zealand Universities
- 1 All Blacks coach
- 3 All Blacks selectors
- 1 Italian National Coach
