Top Auckland School Excluded From Top 2019 Rugby Competition

St Kentigern College have been excluded from the prestigious 1A Auckland 1st XV schoolboy competition following the recruitment of a number of players who have played 1st team rugby for other schools.

A number of rival schools have joined forces and will boycott playing St Kents as they feel the moral and ethical boundries have been crossed with this recruitment.

"It's a serious issue and it needed a serious response," Mount Albert Grammar School principal Patrick Drumm said. "We needed to take a strong leadership stand as a recruitment strategy like this is not what school sport should be about.

"The integrity and credibility of the competition is challenged by targeting elite players from around the country. We felt the time was right to try to have a moral and ethical discussion and while we had a positive meeting with King's that wasn't the case with St Kents."

‘They’re not building from the ground up, from year nine to 11. They’re going after the superstars and it’s brazen,” Napier Boys principal Matthew Bertram told the NZ Herald, after their halfback joined the school for next year.