Judo players to represent NZ at Oceania Judo Champs

Whanganui Judo Players to represent NZ at Oceania Judo Championships.
PHOTO: Angus, Liam Goodhall, former WHS student Finn Brown and WHS student Keightley Watson (who is also a member of the NZ Team attending the Oceania Judo Champs.

Four Whanganui Judo players have been selected for the New Zealand team to compete at the 2017 Oceania Continental Judo Championships, to be held in Tonga on April 27 and 28.

Finn Brown will represent NZ in the under 73kg Junior Mens and Senior Mens competition, Liam Goodhall in the under 90kg Junior Mens, Keightley Watson in the over 90kg Junior Mens competition and Kasey Watson in the under 73kg Junior Mens.

The four returned with their team mates from the national training camp held in Gisborne earlier in the year. For Finn Brown it was a break through weekend; having already secured his place as the under 73kg Junior Mens representative, he had also been selected to compete for the Senior Men’s team. To earn his place in the Senior Mens team he had to win a best of three fights against Elliot Connelly from Christchurch, who had been training in Europe over the last judo season. To the delight of his coaches and team mates Finn won the first two fights, claiming his spot in the Senior Men’s team.

For Finn Brown it will be the fourth time that he has represented NZ at the Oceania Championships, having competed and won silver in the Cadet Men’s U50kg in Cairns in 2012 at age 14 and then competing and taking bronze in the U73kg in Canberra last year at age 18. For Liam Goodhall and Keightley Watson, it will be their first time to compete for New Zealand at an international level.

Age is on the side of the young players, with Finn and Liam aged 19, and Keightley aged 15. All the players are young and have plenty of years ahead of them in the sport.

Whanganui is lucky to have two judo clubs operating in the city with Finn, Liam and Keightly training out of the Wanganui City College Judo club (the school makes the facilities available but anyone is welcome) and Kasey training out of the Wanganui Judo Club. All four however are looking for training opportunities and often come to sessions in both clubs. In Finn’s case, in his second year of engineering at Massey University, he travels over to Whanganui on weekends to train in his club, often accompanied by Palmerston North players coming across for the opportunity to train with the calibre of competitors and coaches that we have in Whanganui.

Success and selection at this level is no accident and apart from the hours of training that the four players put in, it is a tribute to their coaches Garry Davies from City College Judo Club (a New Zealand representative in his own right), Eddie Yuen (who has recently joined the club and who represented Hong Kong internationally for 12 years and competed at the world champs) and the coach at Wanganui Judo Club, Wayne Watson (Commonwealth Games bronze medallist in 1990).

We wish the four well and will follow their results at the Oceania Champs in Tonga.

River City Press 20/4/17