Brothers share spoils at touch nationals

Teenage girl power paid off on and off the field for Nelson at the Touch NZ Youth Nationals in South Auckland.

Several female members of last year’s champion U16 Nelson mixed team wanted their coach to move up to the U18 grade with them this month.

It made perfect sense to Dion Taikato.

“I’ve been coaching some of these girls since they were in the U12’s and I was keen to see them through to the U18 level,” says Dion.

In the past the U18 mixed title has proved elusive but this year the side went undefeated and won the final 7-5 against Taranaki.

“Mixed touch relies heavily on whether you have good girls, especially defenders. They do their thing and boys do theirs,” comments the 21-year-old.

To the U16, where Jaxon Taikato called the shots after switching from the U18 team and they won all their games on the way to retaining their crown.

“We had a good core group from last year and fresh talent coming through as well. We improved game by game, slowly getting better until the final which proved our best match,” declares Jaxon.

Despite the normally 16-strong squad being a player down, and another carrying an injury, the Nelson outfit beat North Harbour 11-5 in the final.

Jaxon echoed his younger brother’s thoughts about the reasons for Nelson’s ongoing youth success.

“We rely heavily on the girls. They carry our team and gel really well with the boys,” enthuses Jaxon, who is also the assistant coach of the New Zealand U18 mixed team.

It was a family affair as the brothers’ mother Jemma Taikato was the tournament manager for the Nelson teams.

“It is the first time we achieved the U16 U18 double. We don’t have the numbers here to field full female teams but the ones we do have are very strong and have amazing hands. They score 95% of the tries,” says Jemma.

She points out the boys also played a big part in the U18 success too.
“Touch is all about family here.”