Our Southern Zone Scorpions have wrapped up another NZRL Youth Nationals campaign, with four teams proudly representing the South Island on the national stage.

A standout result came from our 16s Boys, who produced an outstanding campaign to reach the National Grand Final and finish second in New Zealand. Their performances across the tournament showed plenty of grit, belief and resilience, and earning a silver medal was a fantastic achievement for the players and coaching staff.

While the scoreboard didn’t always fall our way across our other teams, success at this level is about much more than results.

Having both our 16s and 18s Girls teams competing at Nationals was something to celebrate, with both groups showing significant growth and improvement throughout the tournament.

Our 18s Boys also represented the Scorpions strongly, competing with pride and determination despite a number of players being unavailable for the campaign.

Across all four teams, our young people represented their districts, their whānau and the Southern Zone with pride.

A huge thank you must go to our coaches, managers, trainers and support staff who gave countless hours to prepare, support and care for our athletes throughout the campaign. These opportunities simply don’t happen without the people behind the scenes who continue to give back to our game.

We also acknowledge our whānau who travelled to Auckland, everyone who supported from home, our districts, partners and the wider Southern Zone rugby league community who got behind our teams.

Four teams. One Zone. Plenty to be proud of.

Congratulations to all of our 2026 Southern Zone Scorpions. 

Article added: Thursday 01 October 2026