Kerikeri High School First XV: the Far North's rising rugby story in 2026

Far up State Highway 10, in the heart of the Bay of Islands, Kerikeri High School keeps turning out rugby players who love the game. The co-ed school on Hone Heke Road is one of the biggest in Te Tai Tokerau, and its First XV carries the hopes of a proud Far North rugby community every winter.

Northland secondary schools rugby is its own world, spread across the towns and rural clubs from Whangarei to the Cape. For a Kerikeri side, every fixture can mean a long bus ride and a tough, physical contest against schools that take their rugby seriously. Is Northland schoolboy rugby the most underrated competition in the country? Plenty of Far North families would say yes.

Kerikeri offers rugby, rugby touch and rugby sevens, and the First XV sits at the top of that pathway. It is a genuine co-ed programme, and the club-and-school culture around it runs deep, with home games played on grounds that have shaped local players for generations.

The clearest proof of what is possible wears a Highlanders jersey. Lucas Casey was born in Kerikeri and came through the Kerikeri High School First XV before moving south, joining the Blues academy, then the Highlanders academy, and building a career at flanker with Otago and the Highlanders. He featured for the Highlanders through the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season, a reminder that the road from a Far North school field can lead all the way to the professional game.

In 2026 Casey closed that loop. He returned to Kerikeri High School as an ex-student to speak with the next wave of aspiring players, sharing how hard work, a love for the game and real sacrifice took him from Kerikeri to Super Rugby. For a young First XV, few things land harder than hearing it from someone who sat in the same classrooms.

What does a big season look like for a school like this? Sometimes it is a title. More often it is the quieter wins: a first-choice side that stays healthy, younger players stepping up, and a team that grows tighter week by week. Should more of the rugby spotlight shine on programmes like Kerikeri, well away from the traditional big-city powerhouses?

If you want to follow the team's 2026 season, the best places are the school's own channels: the Kerikeri High School website and the school's 1st XV Rugby page. That is where match news, photos and fixtures land first, straight from the people who know the side best.

The Far North has always produced rugby people. On a cold Saturday in Kerikeri, the First XV is carrying that story forward, one game at a time.