President's Update - May 2023

Kia ora koutou, Aotearoa Handball Whānau!

A mixture of looking back and looking forward in this month’s update as the indoor handball season swings into gear.

 

Auckland OpEN

I am penning this month’s update hot on the heels of another fabulous Auckland Open. Good numbers attending, lots of tight matches and fierce competition. and some exciting handball talent on display, young and old - a treat to be there to witness the event. New Zealand handball looks to be in a good space.

Congratulations to the Auckland Women’s team for convincingly taking out their section of the event in a round robin competition, and to the Wellington Barbarians for taking out an all-Wellington final against the Vic Uni Turtles in a very closely matched 6 team competition. Congratulations also to Auckland Handball for organising such a smoothly run tournament.

 

Tournament feedback

With three major tournaments now under our belt for 2023 (Beach Club Champs and the Queenstown and Auckland Opens) we will shortly be circulating a feedback survey to ensure all involved have an opportunity to have their say. We feel there is some great handball product being delivered, but we know there is always room for improvement so would love to hear from you. And don’t feel you need to wait for the survey to have your say - please reach out to secretary@handball.org.nz at any time if you have any feedback you would like us to take on board.

 

Upcoming events

The Auckland Committee aren’t resting on their laurels with the Auckland Open now done and dusted. They are also hosting a male youth/under 20 tournament over the weekend of 8-9 July, and an equivalent female tournament over the weekend of 5-6 August.

If that age bracket is relevant to you, please do whatever you can to get along - Auckland has a track record of building great competitions, now it’s in the hands of under 20 players to get in behind the opportunity. 

Each major region is aiming to send a team to both competitions so please get in contact with your local region for more information on joining that team. 

Auckland:  info@aucklandhandball.com 

Wellington: admin@wellingtonhandball.com 

Christchurch: secretary@canterburyhandball.org.nz 

Otago: otagohandball@gmail.com

 

The next scheduled national domestic event is the Club Champs in Wellington on 8-10 September. It’s shaping up to be a great tournament, so make sure you have it locked into your schedule to come along.

 

We also have various training camps being held for our national representative squads, as well as local trainings taking place in each region. And on the international stage it is now less than ten weeks until the IHF Men’s U19 Handball World Championships…

 

NZ Youth High Performance

The men’s youth champs in Auckland in July will be the last hit out for our Under 19 Team before they head off to take on the world in Croatia.https://handball.org.nz/youth/current-youth-mens-campaign Thomas and the boys have run an amazing fundraising campaign to help cover the significant costs involved, and have really appreciated the overwhelming support they have received to date - but would also really appreciate any further support anyone is able to provide! They are still looking for a major sponsor to take advantage of the opportunity presented - for more information, contact youth@handball.org.nz.

Of course, it’s not all about the boys. We had a good level of interest in joining our female Under 17 and Under 19 squads, and we have assembled a great coaching unit to support them. The immediate focus of the girls’ campaign is on the IHF Trophy Oceania qualifiers being held later in the year, but longer term we are committed to building depth in this group - so the door remains open for new players to join the wider training squad for the campaign. Please register your interest through the EOI form on our website: https://handball.org.nz/youth-handball

 

Beach

The Beach Handball season reached a crescendo with the Oceania Beach Handball Qualifiers held in Coolangatta over ANZAC Weekend. The Men’s and Women’s teams played their hearts out, both making the finals but fell just short, sadly missing out on qualification to the World Beach Games in 2023 and the Beach Handball Championships in 2024. While these results were agonising for all involved, our players gave it their all and did their nation proud. Congratulations to the Australian teams going on to represent Oceania at the upcoming world events. But we’ll be back!

The NZHF management team is now looking at options to give our young and hungry sides the best available international experience and opportunities. We remain committed to moving from strength to strength in the beach handball scene, despite the disappointment in Coolangatta. In the coming months we will be finalising our national calendar for next year with some exciting changes, so for those who prefer their handball action on the sand, keep an eye out for what’s in store.

 

Referee courses

Switching from the playing side of the fence, one of our key ongoing initiatives is to improve the quality of our refereeing and overall understanding of the rules of our wonderful game. Antoine will be kicking off this year’s referee education programme on the first Sunday evening of June. It’s all run virtually, and we would love as many of our community as possible to take part - including those who went through last year’s programme and would like a refresher. For those completing the course, there is NZHF referee accreditation up for grabs, which brings with it eligibility to be paid for games you referee at national events.

The course is an essential building block for anyone interested in refereeing at a higher level - and is great for anyone just wanting a better understanding of the game. Look out for further details being posted later this month, or contact referees@handball.org.nz if you would like to register your interest in taking part.

 

Regions

Part of our strategic initiatives includes improving the information flows between the regions. We will be looking to convene a regions’ hui in the next few weeks, and will report further on what’s going on handball-wise around the country in next month’s update.

 

That’s it for this month – best wishes to you all for your various handball endeavours, whatever they may be.

 

David ireland

President

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Shout Out to the NZ Under 19 Mens World Championship Delegation

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With the NZ youth team busy training and preparing for the 2023 IHF Men’s Youth World Championship, we would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the delegation behind the team.

Please continue supporting the team by going to NZ Youth Handball.

TIM RAYNER

High Performance Director

Tim is the current High Performance Director of NZHF. He coordinates and coaches the NZ representative teams. He has coached the youth team that won the 2018 IHF Trophy Oceania and at the IHF Intercontinental Trophy. He has also coached the New Zealand Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball Team. The men’s beach handball team played at the 2018 World Beach Handball Championship in Russia as a wildcard. And followed that up with winning the Oceania qualifiers to represent the region for the 2022 World Beach Handball Championship in Greece.

 

THOMAS SCHMIDER

Head of Delegation

Thomas was the president of Auckland Handball from 2019 to 2022. During that time they have setup the foundation for a youth team in Auckland. He took over the management of the national youth teams last year with the successful campaign at the 2022 IHF Trophy Oceania were the Youth team placed 2nd and the Junior Team 3rd. He looks at his main responsibility as the Head of Delegation is to “enable the management team to make choices that create the future for the National Youth Handball Team. The goal is to establish an environment where the players feel well looked after, can train and perform like professionals and are inspired to connect with other players”.

 

OLLY DONALDSON

Manager

A relatively newcomer to the handball community, he has a Sports Management and Psychology degree. He was part of the team delegation at the 2022 IHF Trophy Oceania were the Youth team placed 2nd and the Junior Team 3rd. He is currently part of the NZ Men’s Beach Handball team and played at the 2022 World Beach Handball Championship in Greece and the 2023 Oceania Beach Handball Championship in Australia.

 

HAYDEN JURANOVICH

Head Coach

Hayden coached the youth teams at the 2022 IHF Trophy Oceania were the Youth team placed 2nd and the Junior Team 3rd. He has also the coached the Canterbury Women’s team. As coach he is “looking forward to helping (the) guys grow as players and see where this sport can take (them) as many opportunities have opened up recently for our players”

 

ROLAND NEMES

Coaching Advisor

Roland is an IHF Lecturer and has been involved in handball coaching including national teams, top-tier club teams and young players at grassroots level. He brings a wealth of coaching knowledge and expertise.

Oceania Beach Handball Championships Day 2 Summary

Willy Silcock, Beach Handball Coordinator, summarised day 1 for the New Zealand teams.

“The Beach Handball New Zealand Team’s put together some solid performances on day two of the Oceania Qualifiers!

The Women's team put on a dominant display in their last pool match against American Samoa and secured the second seed going into the Semi-Finals!

The Men's team may have suffered a tough loss against Australia in their opening game, but they bounced back with a gritty win over Cook Islands to earn themselves a rematch in the final!

We are so incredibly proud of our New Zealand Beach Handball players and all that they have accomplished thus far in the tournament! Keep up the outstanding work and give it everything you've got in the final!”

For more details, results and links go to Event Page

Oceania Beach Handball Championships Day 1 Summary

Willy Silcock, Beach Handball Coordinator, summarised day 1 for the New Zealand teams.

"Our national teams played two games each today. The men won their matches against both Australia and Cook Islands. The women started off with a good win versus Cook Islands, and came up short against Australia in pool play. Great job, everyone!

While it's an impressive start, our coaches think the teams still have a lot more to give in the final two days of the Oceania Qualifying Championship. Let's keep pushing and striving for excellence, as we know that there is always room for improvement and we want to continue to challenge ourselves to reach our full potential. With dedication, hard work, and a focus on teamwork, we can elevate our performance to even greater heights. Congratulations to our teams on a great start, and let's keep up the momentum!"

For links and results go to Event Page

President's Update - April 2023

Tēnā Koutou, Aotearoa Handball supporters

 A busy past month for New Zealand Handball. Much mahi has been put in on multiple fronts off the court, as well as on court success in the form of another successful annual Queenstown Social Tournament to kick off the indoor season. Congrats to Leo and the Queenstown Handball team for pulling that off, great to see the camaraderie that is New Zealand Handball on display once again. Next national tournament cab off the rank is the Auckland Open on May 20-21, which is shaping up to be another goodie.

 The big ticket item for your Exec has been progressing our strategic plan to ensure we are focusing our efforts for maximum impact. Our vision, purpose and values remain the same – the key objective remains to grow New Zealand Handball to its full potential and deliver great Handball opportunities for all. It’s the paths we follow to get there where you will see some changes.

 Feeding off the very constructive Club and Regional Associations strategy session last December, there are three broad strategic pillars to our go forward strategy:

  • Governance: The framework within which New Zealand Handball operates needs to be effective

  • Lifting the Standard: Everything we do is of a high standard and professionally run.

  • Growing the Base: Player and administrator numbers are increasing with good retention and all regions thriving.

 All three pillars are important and all are interconnected, but the main focus for now is on Growing the Base. To that end we have identified our top ten priority initiatives to deliver on the strategic pillars. They include the newly formed Women’s Working Group, development of a player pathway, regular regional meetings to be kicked off by an engagement survey coming your way next month, clearer processes for appointing our coaches, and coach and referee development. We will post this up on the website in the coming weeks.

 A key component of our overall strategy is fostering strong relationships with our strategic partners. We already have enduring relationships in place with Sport NZ, the Goethe Institut, and TAB NZ. Last month we were delighted to announce last month our signing of Select New Zealand as our preferred supplier of Handball kit for our indoor Handball representative teams moving forward. You can check out their great range of clothing here https://www.freedom2play.co.nz/collections/nz-handball.  We encourage all our community to take advantage of what is on offer. If any of our Clubs or Regions are thinking of re-kitting their teams, please consider Select as an option. Use the code NZHF1 when ordering from the website to unlock a 20% discount across the SELECT range, excluding clothing.

 Fostering the next generation of senior players is a critical part of the strategy, and it is really encouraging to see the momentum of our Men’s Youth Team being maintained as they work towards the World Youth Champs in August. They have received great support from the local and international community in their fundraising efforts to date, for which they are extremely grateful – but there is still a long way to go! If you think you might be able to help out, check out their fundraising page https://nzyouthhandball.raisely.com.

 While we are on the subject of Youth Handball, the call is out for female players born on 1 January 2004 or younger to join our Women’s Youth and Junior Teams to compete in the IHF Trophy Oceania Qualifiers later this year. That’s the pathway our Youth Men took last year to qualify for this year’s World Champs, and it would be fantastic if one or both of their equivalent Women’s teams could follow in their footsteps. Links to the EOIs can be found on our March 23 post, with applications closing on 30 April. If you know of any budding young female stars who have yet to register their interest, please encourage them to do so.

On the High Performance front, we are in the full swing of preparing our indoor Handball squads to target international tournaments. The High performance organisers are running an ALL National teams camp on the 23rd June - 25th June in Christchurch. The vision for this camp is to reconnect with all programmes in the one place, utilising the skills and experience we have to help all levels of Handball.  If you are a player interesting in developing your skills in New Zealand please reach out through the NZHF social media – someone will be in touch.

 Calling out all foreign players and coaches based in New Zealand who want to be involved in the New Zealand handball journey – please sing out if you want to be involved in more handball! Contact high-performance@handball.org.nz for more details.

 Finally, the weekend of April 21-23 sees the Oceania Beach Handball Qualifiers take place in Coolangatta. It is going to be a stiff challenge for our Men’s and Women’s rep teams to get over the line, but they couldn’t be better prepared to take on that challenge. All the best guys, we know you will do the country proud!

 David Ireland

President

New Zealand Handball Federation

Queenstown Social Tournament Summary

Queenstown Social Tournament Summary

Queenstown Tournament 2023 kicked off this year's indoor calendar last weekend (1 - 2 April). A successful tournament with players from Auckland, Canterbury and Otago all participating. The annual social tournament had shorter games 25 minutes per half. On Saturday the first games were the most intense ones with only one point difference in both the men's and women's matches. The second ones were a test of fitness, which is always good and allowed the youth to really shine. The young lads had a lot of court time and built up their confidence and game as we encouraged them to take the lead on the plays and trust themselves. The women then mixed the teams and had a NZ vs other passports match which was neck and neck the whole way ending in epic last play goal to tie the match, 22-22 . The 18s men then played against a mixed men's team which was a tight match ending in 20-17 to the seniors. Sunday was all about fun, 4 teams mixed boys and girls all random were made up with 10 minutes fast paced games all the teams played each other. Everyone had a blast. Big thanks to all the volunteers, helpers, scorers and refs who keep the social tournament going.

Leo Gatti - Queenstown Handball

For details and scoresheets, go to Event Page

Support Our New Zealand Men's Youth Team

Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu

Maori Proverb - Adorn the bird with feathers so it will fly

The New Zealand Men’s youth handball team qualifying to represent Oceania at the IHF Men’s Youth World Championships in Croatia is a fantastic opportunity - not just for the players involved, but for the future of New Zealand handball. Chances to play against the best in the world don’t come around that often, and seeing our guys perform on the world stage will help inspire the next generation to get amongst it. It’s a massive investment for all involved, in both time and costs, so we really hope the country will get behind the boys in their fundraising efforts to help ease some of that burden - SUPPORT THE TEAM

NZHF Partners with SELECT New Zealand

The New Zealand Handball Federation is delighted to announce the appointment of SELECT New Zealand as the new preferred supplier for New Zealand indoor handball representative teams.

“The SELECT brand is a great fit for New Zealand Handball. SELECT put forward a really strong proposal, and we are looking forward to a mutually beneficial strategic partnership with Pushkar and the Freedom2Play team over the years ahead.””
— David Ireland, President, New Zealand Handball Federation

SELECT’s offer includes special deal for kitting out our national teams, a supply of SELECT handballs for each campaign kitted out by SELECT, credits and discounts for the New Zealand handball community when purchasing SELECT gear. A dedicated page for New Zealand Handball on SELECT's website for easy access to a range of customised kit - Freedom@Play-NZHF

“SELECT is more than balls – we not only have a selection of quality balls for all levels, but we also have a large selection of clothing, training equipment, bags, sports supports etc. SELECT are delighted that New Zealand Handball Federation have trusted our capabilities and selected us to offer quality products to New Zealand players and the wider handball community.”
— Pushkar Kulkarni, Director, SELECT New Zealand

player’s choice by SELECT

Connect with SELECT:

Website: Freedom2Play

Instagram: SelectSportNZ and Freedom2PlaySports

Facebook: Freedom2PlaySports

Twitter: @Freedom2play_NZ

EOI for Women's Youth and Junior National Teams

Attention all young and talented women handball players! Here's an exciting opportunity for you to showcase your skills and represent your country on a global stage. The International Handball Federation is hosting the IHF Trophy in late 2023, and we are looking for new and current youth and junior women handball players to join our team.

This is your chance to compete against the best in the world, learn from experienced coaches and players, and make lifelong memories. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, we welcome all skill levels to try out.

Don't miss this incredible opportunity to take your handball game to the next level and make your mark on the international stage. Sign up now for a chance to be a part of our team and represent your country with pride.

You will receive an email response to confirm your EOI has been submitted. As we are currently seeking interest there is not a confirmed location for where trials will be held, Coaches and Managers announced shortly.

Deadline to register - 30 April 2023

Players born 1st of Jan 2006 or younger - https://forms.gle/eZKkhHC1bxLEWNyo9

Players born 1st of Jan 2004 or younger - https://forms.gle/7aiV3n1pMKYPoFXb6

Any questions please email high-performance@handball.org.nz