Inside New Zealand’s most successful school first XV, Hamilton Boys’ High
Saturday, 16 August 2025
As many of their peers lie snoozing in bed on freezing winter mornings, players from Hamilton Boys’ High School’s first XV gather at 6.15am, three times a week.
Monday morning shuttles easily identify who might have hit the social scene a little hard on the Saturday night, or gone a little light on their prescribed Sunday recovery.
Two weights sessions are to come midweek, under the guidance of a full-time strength and conditioning trainer, as well as team trainings, player skill sessions and game analysis. Oh and not to forget schoolwork.
If it all sounds rather full on, it’s because it is.
“It’s pretty much semi-professional,” HBHS first XV captain, and deputy head boy, Alex Arnold, tells the Waikato Times. “That’s what Mr Hotham used to say when he was here.”
Mr (Nigel) Hotham, of course, is the long-time former coach of the team, and the man credited with turning the school into what can be classed as New Zealand’s most successful first XV operation.
When the associate headmaster upped sticks midway through last year, on a sabbatical to coach in Hong Kong, he had fashioned an incredible 85% win rate from his 412 matches in charge, across 22 seasons, which included the winning of five world titles.
“He was a schoolboy rugby genius. He’s the guru,” admits his replacement Cam Moorby (older brother of Waikato and Hurricanes rep, Josh).
Moorby, himself, was coached by Hotham, then recently served a short period as his assistant coach, before taking the reins near the end of last season and seeing HBHS through to another top-four championship win.
That record sixth national crown now has them one clear of Wesley College and Kelston Boys’ High School in the overall stakes.
In the competition that has been running since 1982, HBHS did not make the top-four playoffs until 2004, Hotham’s second year in charge. But since then they have notched a record 14 appearances (two more than Napier Boys’ High School), including at six of the past seven editions, dating back to 2016 (the 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to Covid).
On Saturday they will hope to take their next step towards yet another visit to the Palmerston North playoffs, when they host Rotorua Boys’ High School in the Chiefs region semifinal. The winner will travel to face either Wesley or Francis Douglas Memorial College for the coveted berth top-four berth.
It’s been a shaky season so far for HBHS, mind you, with a four-win, three-loss record in their Super Eight competition seeing them finish outside the top two for the first time since 2011, as Palmerston North Boys’ High School went on to pip Rotorua in the final.
And with the pedigree that there is, Moorby admits those sorts of results (the three defeats coming on three successive weekends) do not exactly go un-noticed around the school.
“People were asking questions of them [the players], and people were asking questions of us [the coaching team, which also includes, like him, other former students and current physical education teachers at the school, Jonnie Te Ruki-Chambers and Te Raina Richards-Coxhead], naturally.”
Mind you, the previous two times Hamilton haven’t won the Super Eight (last year and 2022) they have still gone on to take national honours. Perhaps something to do with peaking when it matters most. And after getting their season back on track with three wins on the trot, they are now homed in on a ‘one-game-at-a-time’ mentality rather than getting too caught up with living up to the legacy that exists.
With a school office that features bulging trophy cabinets, a pavilion where honours boards showcase names of famous old boys, and a changing room where photos of said players bring even more tangibility, that is not easy when there’s such a rich recent history of graduates.
SIX OF THE BEST
In fact, HBHS have the highest representation among 2025 All Blacks squad members.
Noah Hotham (son of Nigel), Josh Lord, Cortez Ratima, Quinn Tupaea, Emoni Narawa and Sevu Reece make it six ex-pupils, which is two more than boasted by Cambridge’s St Peter’s School and New Plymouth’s Francis Douglas.
Of course, not all of that sextet began their secondary education at the school, but its reputation, and connections, have it as a highly-attractive institute for those wanting to further their footy.
A case in point being current skipper and blindside flanker Arnold, a 2024 New Zealand Māori Under-18s rep, who achieved the rare feat of breaking into the first XV as a Year 11 (as a lock), after making the move from Taupō to board at a school he had eyed up from the tender age of seven.
“My dad came up to a couple of coaching courses in Hamilton and one of the guys said to him, ‘If you want your son to have a chance at rugby, you’ve got to get him out of these isolated places where people don’t really look too much, you’ve got to get him into a big mainstream competition’.
“And obviously looking at Boys’ High and their track record, and their turnout rate, as well as the education − it’s next level with NCEA pass rates − it was pretty much a no-brainer.”
A school with a roll of around 2300, HBHS have 22 rugby teams in operation this season, on par with recent years, with the playing numbers roughly the same as football.
Moorby, in conjunction with his role as first XV coach, is also the school’s director of high performance sport (overseeing six different codes), working closely with Todd Miller, the former Waikato, Chiefs and four-game All Blacks fullback, who is the teacher in charge of rugby.
Miller has a wider brief on making sure boys have a good experience and want to keep playing, while Moorby’s is focused on ‘performance’ and the school’s ‘ideal pathway’, which is seen as a steady progression from the under-14 As, to under-15 As, to the second XV, then, ultimately, to the first XV.
Having him teaching the year-nine athlete development class also gives an instant connection, both ways, between prospective future talents and the top team’s coach.
INTERNATIONAL FLAVOUR
Among what has become a highly-competitive schoolboy scene, at the other end of the spectrum from the tender junior entrants are contentious issues around Year 14s and player ‘poaching’.
But Moorby acknowledges the rules, and morals, are clear, as far as HBHS stands.
His team does have one Year 14 (students do still have to be under 18 on January 1 to be able to play), he notes, but says that’s only due to circumstances (not playing last year due to injury), as well as it being an education-based decision signed off by headmaster Jarred Williams.
And after School Sport New Zealand’s introduction of the ‘New to School’ rule, which prohibits teams fielding any more than four players in their game-day 22 who have been enrolled at a school less than two years, and also no more than two internationals in that same group of four, any big recruitment drives are a fruitless exercise.
That’s not to say HBHS doesn’t open the doors to overseas talent.
A connection Hotham was responsible for establishing early on with Fiji’s Queen Victoria School continues to pay dividends, with one player a year being offered an opportunity to head to Hamilton.
Two of the originals, Dominiko Waqaniburotu and Albert Vulivuli, were future Fiji internationals, while Henry Speight went on to represent the Wallabies, and Reece and Narawa are pin-ups, having made it to the All Blacks.
Separate to that is HBHS’s International Rugby Programme. It allows applications for overseas students to pay an extra fee to be able to receive a rugby education through both theory and practical classes.
Brought about chiefly thanks to the school’s success at the Sanix World Rugby Youth Tournament in Japan, and the fielding of enquiries from budding local players, this year’s group of 16 is indeed Japanese-centric, though also has representation from Fiji, Italy, the United States and even Denmark.
‘EXCELLENCE IN ALL AREAS’
As debates forever swirl over how much emphasis schools should be put on winning rugby games versus focusing on providing an academic education, with an outlet to also play sport, HBHS aims to strike that perfect balance.
“It’s excellence in all areas,” Moorby says of the philosophy. “It’s just being the best that you can be. We’re massive on that.”
And that’s why training loads aren’t compromised. In fact, it’s a gruelling schedule. Just ask Noah Hotham, the school’s most recent All Black.
He was feeding the scrums for the first XV back in 2019 and 2020 and admits to being “real grateful” for having the hard-edge mentality instilled at a young age.
“Coming out of high school, going into the likes of NPC and Super, none of our pre-seasons felt as hard as anything we did at high school,” he declares. “We got flogged, man. We did some trainings where it was astronomical.”
And not just because his old man wanted to go extra-hard on his own son, he believes.
“It was a team collective, and I guess when we’ve seen boys before us do that and come out successful, the likes of Sevu, Emoni, Cortez, Tawera Kerr-Barlow, Sean Maitland, it’s like, ‘I want to be one of them’, so… [that’s what you have to do].
“It was more about getting used to out-working people and putting in great habits to be good footy players, and a better person.”
Moorby concurs. He says Nigel Hotham was so good at doing that by spending so much time with the players, and making them well aware how cared for they were and how much he wanted them to flourish.
A tradition of the team that has carried on is that every first XV player has a training diary made for them at the start of the season, where the coaches have a campaign plan and theme, team values and quotes.
Even such attitudes as ‘me and we’ when it comes to individuals’ video reviews of games are a simple but effective way the players are reminded of the vital mix of individual accountability but also strong team ethos, that they must adhere to. Prima Donnas won’t last long.
“We always talk about, ‘It’s not just the rugby player’, what you do on the field isn’t going to get you to the finish line,” Moorby says. “It’s the whole picture.
“And we see that all the time. We see boys with all the talent in the world that are, for lack of a better word, d…heads, or just don’t have the right attitude, and they fall away pretty quickly.”
How a Hamilton Boys’ High School First XV week looks
Monday: 6.15-7.30am: indoor conditioning session, 3.30-5pm: player-led skills session, collective game review/preview
Tuesday: 6.15-7.30am: weights session, 3.30-5pm: field session
Wednesday: (term 2 only) 3.30-5pm: contact/set-piece session
Thursday: 6.15-7.30am: weights session, 3.30-5pm: player-led captain’s run
Friday: Lunchtime walk-through/morning travel for away games (billeted)
Saturday: Game day
Sunday: Individual recovery session (swim, golf etc), game review
National First XV Championship Top-Four playoffs records
Most appearances: Hamilton Boys’ High School (14)
Most finals: Hamilton Boys’ High School (8)
Most titles: Hamilton Boys’ High School (6) − 2024, 2022, 2014, 2013, 2009, 2008
Hamilton Boys’ High School’s 2025 All Blacks (year graduated)
Noah Hotham (2020)
Josh Lord (2018)
Cortez Ratima (2018)
Quinn Tupaea (2017)
Emoni Narawa (2017)
Sevu Reece (2015)