Co-curricular - Senior Sport

Whilst there is a high level of participation across all winter sports at the College, there is still a growing number of students that are simply content with just participating and happy to ‘just make up the numbers'.

At the end of last term, I addressed students and stated that there needs to be an attitude shift from wanting to just participate, in comparison to what is sung in our College Anthem - wanting to ‘strive for victory’. We should not be simply satisfied with the idea of “I just want to have fun and play with my mates”. We should want to compete in all facets of the game, we should want to try and win… but never at the compromise of good sportsmanship.

Winning is not the most important element of playing a sport; but striving to win and never giving up should also be a very big part of it too. ‘Winners are grinners’. Having the desire to win leads to the development of a strong sense of work ethic, looking for ways to always improve oneself and learning how to work within a team environment. 

Many of you are probably still thinking that sport is about having fun. I absolutely could not agree more…sport should be something that brings a sense of joy to your life. But after my many years of playing and coaching, the teams that strive to win are the teams who work hard for one another; they are the ones who improve and believe in themselves; they are determined and fight till the very end of a match; they are the teams, come seasons’ end, with the players who by far have had the most fun.

These teams that have a desire to win may be beaten on the score board from time to time but ultimately, never feel a sense of defeat.

I wish to remind all our boys of this very important message. My hope for all students is that they will be lucky enough to be members of such teams, because I know the friendships, skills, and experiences gained are far more valuable over the course of your lifetime and provide boys with much greater memories than just playing sport with the sole objective ’of just having fun’.

In simple terms - play to compete and play to win because the by-product will be you or your son having fun! 

In accordance with this overall message and as a College community, let us continue to support our teams at Saturday fixtures and cheer them on to victory. Anyone who was present at last Saturday’s Supporters’ Day would have been amazed by the atmosphere on Breen Oval. Well done to all Year 5, 6 and 7 students on their impressive efforts; the sheer volume of noise and joyous cheering produced was beyond fantastic. 

This weekend our 1st IV Tennis will play St Andrew’s Cathedral School, the 1st XI Football will take on Redlands at Macquarie University playing fields and the 1st XV Rugby will play Cranbrook School at Dangar Oval (Rose Bay) kicking off at the usual time of 3:15 p.m. I encourage all students and families to try and support our 1st’s teams playing away this weekend. It is important we do travel and support all our teams to generate a stronger sense of school spirit, because one day, that might be you or your son running out there onto that field. 

Anthony Calavassy

Head of Secondary Sport

Senior Sport Fixtures

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