Eight members of the Tauranga City Tridents American Football Club will travel with the Aotearoa Flag Ferns and New Zealand Mako flag football teams to take on the best in the world later this month.

The two teams will compete at the International Federation of American Football flag football world championships in Lahti, Finland in late August.

Flag football is the fast paced non-contact version of American Football, played in a five-aside format, and was last year announced as a new Olympic sport, to be introduced at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

The Aotearoa Flag Ferns and the New Zealand Mako are the national women’s and men’s team, made up of players and coaches from the 19 American Football clubs around New Zealand.

The eight Tridents comprise a quarter of the 32-strong New Zealand playing and management team making the 17,000km trip north to Finland. 

The Tauranga City Tridents were formed in 2021, and were the first American Football Club to operate in the region for almost two decades.

Since then their membership has grown to more than 80 athletes, offering both flag football and contact football to the Bay of Plenty region. 

The eight-strong Tauranga contingent is comprised of four athletes and four coaching and management staff.

Ellie McManaway spearheads the crew of athletes, embarking on her second year as captain of the Flag Ferns.

She is joined by Emma Johnson, who returns for her second year in the team, and debutants Jorja Mouat and Sarah Monteith. 

Joining them on the plane to Finland are Tridents coaches Peter Copsey (Flag Ferns Defensive Coordinator) and Chris Cordrey (NZ Mako Offensive Coordinator) as well as brothers Alex and Sean Hatwell, who are team managers for the Flag Ferns and Mako teams respectively. 

Also adding to the Tauranga contingent is physiotherapist Georgia Harris of Bespoke Physiotherapy.

Georgia has been working as the team physio with the Flag Ferns for the World Championship campaign, and will be sideline with the Ferns in Finland. 

In addition to the players making the New Zealand national teams, four other Tridents athletes were selected for the development teams.

Kyla Connolly and Nicole Huala were selected for the Wahine Toa. Mark Riley and Scott Witney were selected for the Mako Development team, both of which will compete in Australia in November.

“We’re incredibly proud of our four athletes who will be representing the Ferns on the world stage," says Tridents club president Alex Hatwell.

"We only started our women’s programme two seasons ago, and these four athletes were cornerstones of that.

"They have put significant effort into not just learning a new sport, but also upskilling themselves to the point where they are now donning the New Zealand jersey.

Alex says all of these athletes come from other sporting backgrounds, and flag football has a lot of transferable skills from other ball sports, which makes it easy to learn.

"It’s really great to see Tauranga represented in such a huge way at this level and its a tribute to the club’s ability to develop our athletes," says Alex.

“It’s testament to the culture we tried to build from the outset where we wanted an inclusive club where everyone was welcome, but where we also strived for success - we think we’ve found the right balance there," says Trident club secretary Sean Hatwell.

"We couldn’t have imagined that we’d see this level of success this quickly, and a lot of that comes down to the strong coaching we have at our club.

"Pete (Copsey) and Chris (Cordrey) are two fine examples of this, and have put in a lot of work to teach the game to our local athletes," says Sean.

"Pete led the Tridents women to bronze at national champs this year, and Chris our Tridents men to silver. We’re fizzing to see what they’ll produce on the world stage."

The Flag Ferns are ranked 15th in the world and the Mako 12th in the world.

They will be joined by more than 30 other countries, including the top ranked USA mens and women’s teams.

The tournament runs from August 27 to 30. Games will be streamed via ifaf.tv.