The team is representing Southland in the Condor Sevens national secondary schools rugby tournament.
The team qualified for the tournament by winning a best of three matchup with Southland Girls’ High School.
The four-day event starts in Mt Maunganui today and the team’s games start on Saturday.
More than 110 teams in the year 9 and 10 and open sections will take part.
The college team is coached by Mark Tree and Warren Ruwhiu and managed by Jane Cowie.
Tree said the team comprised players from the college’s girl’s 1st XV team.
"They’ve put a lot of effort into ... learning sevens, and they’ve really enjoyed that."
How well they have adapted to the format will be revealed when they come up against the other teams, he said.
"We’re a 15s team trying to play sevens, whereas a lot of these teams will be sort of specialist sevens teams."
Many of the players had wanted to attend the tournament since they started at the college.
"They’re pretty stoked to be able to get away and do it."
The aim was to enjoy taking part in a national tournament. "Our main goal is to go up there and enjoy the atmosphere and the challenge, and actually just have fun."
However, this team constantly surprised him so anything could happen, Tree said.
"We’re definitely going away, hoping to upset a few teams, and if we do, that would be really cool."
The temperatures during the tournament were predicted to be in the mid-20s which might be a challenge for the players, he said.
Tree had been impressed with the dedication of the players to prepare for the tournament.
"They’ve put a lot of conditioning work in, and they’ve all been accountable to one another through a messenger page where they post up what they’ve done, so they’re, an awesome group of girls ... a lot of fun to coach.
Much of the credit for the success of the team which also won Rugby Southland 1st XV competition should be given to Ms Cowie, Tree said.
"She’s really the driving force around girls’ rugby at [the college] and she has been for years."
