Champions!

The most important game in New Zealand Rugby history was about to begin. The game that would really show who was the the real number one team in the world. The All blacks were in the final showdown with the very fortunate French side. The All Blacks were heavy favourites with undefeated streak, while France had already lost two pool games against New Zealand and Tonga!

I was watching the event on tv. The atmosphere was huge! Even I was getting nervous just watching the crowd build! The crowd roared before and throughout the game. The game was about to begin. The two teams were about to jogg onto the field. They came onto the field and sang their national anthems (I stood up and sang it too!). The All Blacks performed their fearsome haka and the match was about to begin.

France came out flying quickly getting the ball into their possession. Surprisingly the French were not kicking the ball away as they normally did in their recent games. Instead they were using the ball spreading it quickly around the park trying to counter the might of the All Blacks defence. France were on the front foot in the first 20 minutes, dominating the set pieces with strong scrums and decisive line outs.

The All Blacks needed to establish themselves as the dominate team in this game. So they capitalized on a chance close to the Frech try line with a beautiful set piece move ending up with the prop Tony Woodcock cashing in for the first points. This was a big kick coming up, Weepu was given several chances to take the lead for the All Blacks but was denied both times. This kick would give the All Blacks a bit of breathing space but unfortunately Piri Weepu failed to convert. They went to halftime with the lead being 5-0.

The All Blacks were struck with yet another injury to young gun Aaron Cruden forcing Stephen Donald to come on and make his debut in the World Cup! Fortunately Donald stepped up to the challenge and converted what would be the winning penalty! I was ready to faint in the dying minutes of the game with the clock ticking and the French behind by 1 but having the ball inside the All Blacks half. I nervously watched on as the clock ticked....... YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The All Blacks were given a penalty, all they needed to do was win the line and hold onto the ball. YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! THE PLAGUE IS FINALLY OVER!!!!!! 24 YEARS OF WAITING HAVE FINALLY COME TO AN END!!!!!!!!!

by Tanielu

Cross Country 2011

Here's a little riddle: what do most people look forward to, is very competitive and is kinda like a battle of the fittest ?...Cross country !

Every year, we hold a cross country race. The way its usually set up is in age groups but this year it was a bit different. Instead of age groups, we just raced in years. For example all the Year 7 girls race each other, Year 7 boys race and so on.

Something that was also a bit different was the race course. Instead of just a run around the reserve and back to our field, we ran a race course that was 3.5km ! But luckily for the Year 7's, they only had to run 3km.

As soon as the Year 7 boys were out of sight, the Year 8 girls lined up along the starting line. Miss V explained the race course to us and we waited anxiously for Miss V to clap the clapper. "On your marks" she started "get set..." CLAP ! As soon as we heard the 'clap' we shot off like lightening bolts and tried to overtake each other.

We hadn't even gotten to halfway when we saw the boys catching up to us. Most of us girls started sprinting as soon as we saw the boys, but others were calm and collected and didn't even try to keep in front of the boys. Unfortunately, I was one of those girls. Taking our time, kind of just strolling through the bush.

For a while we started to just stroll along, but then we felt quite de-hydrated so we started to power-walk. A long while later, we saw our school poking through all the ferns and trees, so we started to walk faster. We had nearly gotten to the finished line when we were told by Mrs Lagitupu that we still had 1/2km to run. Puffed out, we went back to walking and finally got to the finish line.

I had known that I wasn't going to come first because I was competing against people like Etta and April. But my goal was to not come last and guess what? I didn't !

by Sela

All Blacks at Pak'nSave Glen Innes

All Black players Richard Kahui, Isaia Toeava and Adam Thompson drew a huge crowd of All Black supporters at Glen Innes Pak'nSave last week. Excited children (and their mums) eagerly waited in the queue to get an autograph, photos and the chance to meet some famous All Blacks. Many Pt England students were lucky enough to meet their stars. Go the All Blacks!

By Paulitia

Keep Your Eye On The Ball

Term 3 is already underway as 'Rugby World Cup' fever hits our school. As usual, immersion assembly was an exciting event with teachers out in full force dressed up as rugby players. Mr Burt and his vendors issued tickets, food and drinks to many lucky students in the audience. Mr Jacobsen could be heard shouting "Ireland!" every so often, as he was fully garbed in Irish colours. We were also treated to an amazing movie about a famous former All Black, the legendary George Nepia. What a great start to the term!

Term 2 Highlights

Man,what a term it’s been! I mean it’s been one of the hardest term’s I’ve gone through! There were so many trainings I had to attend for the schools sports teams, designing signs to go around our school, producing PENN and much more.

One of the many highlights for me this term was participating in the schools Rugby team. I really enjoy training with my mates and we are doing really well this year and are hoping that we can go all the way. So far we have won the Auckland East tournament and are heading into the Auckland champion of champions tournament this Wednesday! Another thing that was related to Rugby throughout the term was some of my friends and I making the Bill Mclaren East Auckland team. I have really enjoyed the trainings and cannot wait for the tournament to come up!

Being able to go to the annual ‘I am making movies 2’ awards at the Auckland Museum was another highlight, making the actual movie was a highlight but making the finals for best documentary is a true honour. It was a wonderful experience especially getting to listen to an awesome all men choir! They were outstanding and really set the night!

Although this term would be the term where I was challenged the most physically it was still an enjoyable one. It was an amazing experience for me, especially sports. It’s been a term that I will never forget when I go onto college.

Term 2 highlights

Term 2 has a lot of awesome highlights in it. So many things to participate in like different types of sports like soccer, rugby, netball and many more different kinds of sports. We also do a lot of learning through this past term with our netbooks.

One of my favourite highlight this term was of course the sports. Sports are a big hobby of mine. A sport I joined in the beginning of this term was soccer. This was the first time we had ever entered a soccer competition. Our coach was the awesome Rm 19 teacher Mr Harris. Our boys also entered. Another sport I joined is netball. We play netball every Tuesday and our coach is Missy. So far we are doing alright but we need more practice.

Another highlight of mine I am making movies. We had a lot of fun making the movie but sometimes it would be a lot pressure by Mrs Lagitupu yelling at us to get it done. But all that yelling paid off at the end. It paid off because when it was time to go to the awards which was held by Auckland Museum we won Best Storytelling and the Supreme Award. Our prize a digital video camera, a few USB’s and a video camera. It was a lot of fun.

My last highlight for Term 2 was Taoga Time with Mrs Nua. With her we learnt how to speak Japanese and how to pronounce the mihi in Maori. We learnt how to count and to say hello, good afternoon, and many more with Mrs Nua. Just last week Mrs Nua’s sister Mrs London came to our school to teach how to speak Japanese. She was an expert and was excellent at speaking that language. She taught us a lot of things for example things like our body part, using chop sticks and many more. Taoga Time this term was AWESOME.

This term has been an awesome term for me and can’t wait for next term.

Mr Burt's korero

On Thursdays, team five have assembly in the street. Mr Burt recently came back from over seas. He talked to us about three things. First ‘Gum is Dumb’, ‘Uniform’ and Schools in over seas. He told us so much about the rich and the poor schools there.

First he talked to us about Gum. People here at our school are out of control with chewing gum. There is a good reason why that gum is not allowed here at school. The reason why is because it can get stuck to furniture and it also looks very ugly on our school grounds. It is also bad chewing gum then you swallow it because people say that if you swallow gum, it will come out eight years later.

There are many schools overseas that have no money. Some schools don’t have a music teacher or even a sport teacher. Some teachers sadly get fired because the school does not have enough money to pay them. He also told us that they have teachers that only work four days a week. Mr Burt said that we are lucky to have a music teacher, also a sports co-ordinator and that it is a privilege to have these net books and have these kinds of working tools that we use here.

Now that he has told us about schools over seas, it is an honour being here at this school and his talk also made us feel sad about the people in other countries. Now that we know we are one of the best schools in the world.