Class Act ten years on

By Otago Daily Times | Posted: Tuesday October 19, 2021

Where are they now

2011: Ben Watts was a member of the New Zealand International Softball Academy and had been in the Junior Black Sox training squad. He planned to study nutrition and PE and hoped to play for the Black Sox.
2021: Watts is in the Black Sox training squad and hoping to make the team for the Men’s Softball World Cup in November next year. As well as playing for the Canterbury Red Sox for the past seven years, he has pitched the Papanui Tigers to the final of the national
club tournament twice in the past three years. He was also in the Junior Black Sox when they competed at the world junior championships in Argentina. He lives in Christchurch and works for recruitment agency ELE Group, as an account manager in the construction
and civil sector.

2011: A talented rugby player and cricketer, Michael Collins was in the 2010 New Zealand under-17 rugby squad and the 2011 Hawke Cup-winning Otago Country Cricket team. He hoped to study surveying or commerce but his primary goal was to make a
career as a professional sportsman.
2021: Collins headed to Wales at the end of the Super Rugby season and is playing for the Ospreys Rugby club. In all, he has played 50 Super Rugby games for the Blues and the Highlanders and 71 games for Otago (which he also captained). He has also occasionally
played for the Boydtown Chargers in the Queenstown twenty20 cricket competition.

Thank you to the Otago Daily Times for the use of this article.