Article added: Friday 09 May 2025

By Jamie Troughton

When registrations for the 2025 Zespri AIMS Games opened in March, a couple of small Northland schools had their collective fingers hovering over entry buttons.

Within minutes, both Ngunguru School and Parua Bay School had signed up, their small but excited contingent of athletes amping to hit the annual intermediate-aged tournament.

“We were pretty desperate to get in and we’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” Ngunguru football player and cross country runner Dylan Drysdale explained. “I’ve been wanting to go to AIMS for my whole time in Ngunguru and I’m so glad that I finally get to go myself.  It’s also pretty cool that a little coastal school is going out into a huge community like AIMS - hopefully we do well and then we won’t be a little coastal school anymore and everyone will know us.”

Ngunguru - at the start of the spectacular Tutakaka Coast - has entered a boys’ football team, a girls’ futsal team, a couple of cross country runners, a surfer and a tennis player.  It’s hoped more will join from the picturesque seaside kura, which sits mere metres from Whangaumu Bay and features a school dolphin bell for when marine mammals venture up the Ngunguru River estuary.

Teacher Matt Burns, formerly at AIMS powerhouse Kamo Intermediate, was a big driver in getting together Ngunguru’s first AIMS contingent for the best part of a decade, with overwhelming support from new principal Rosemary Murphy.

“I saw with Kamo Intermediate how much opportunity it gave the kids to be exposed to a big sporting event like this and there are a lot of talented athletes here at Ngunguru,” Burns said. “We wanted to give them the same sort of opportunities that a bigger school would give them.”

Down the road at Parua Bay, on the equally-idyllic Whangarei Heads coast, a Rip Rugby team is being complemented by surfers, mountain bikers, runners and a couple of squash players, including Sam Rhodes, who finished eighth at AIMS as a Year 7 squash player last year.

“I loved the atmosphere and being part of it,” he said. “When I came back from AIMS, I just wanted to keep playing and spend more time on the court.  I think I’ve improved a bit over the holidays and can’t wait to get back there this year.”

When this edition went to print, 170 schools had already registered, including 15 schools from Northland, nine from Canterbury and a couple from the Deep South - Aparima College in Riverton is sending a squash player, while Southland Boys’ High School has entered a boys’ basketball team.

Gospel Primary School in Fiji has again entered a rugby sevens team and are likely to be joined by Marist Brothers Primary School and St Anne’s Primary from Suva as well.

Registrations for the tournament - from August 30 to September 5 - will close at 7:59pm on Wednesday, May 28.