Tauranga Boys' College's football first XI are in good shape and feeling confident heading into the national secondary schools Lotto Premier Tournament next week in Christchurch.

Their fortunes have dipped in recent weeks in the Loaded WaiBOP Premiership, in which they've had a strong season and topped the table for long periods before falling to their current third position.

But coach Alex Bryant believes even that has produced benefits for his players.

'The last couple of weeks in the federation league we've come up against some good opponents, so we've had a couple of losses in a row, but within those losses we've put together some good performances so we're optimistic heading away that we're in good form and spirits, and good health.”

They'll have some adjusting to do, Alex says, but he believes the experience of playing against men week in week out in the premiership gives them an advantage in the all-important national secondary schools tournament.

'It's a different game, the schoolboy game. You have to defend a more passing style of football, a more possession style.

'When you defend you're defending against more possession-based teams, whereas not many teams in the fed league play a possession-based game. It's more counter-attack.

'But largely, yeah absolutely the boys come up against quality opponents every week and they're definitely well prepared.”

Predicting the outcome of tournaments like this can be a dangerous business, he says, but all going well his squad has the quality to go a long way.

'Tournaments are fickle. Last year we had a strong team and we ended up coming 19th. The team that won it was Hamilton Boys and we'd played them twice that season and had two epic games – you couldn't split us - and one came first and the other came 19th. So there's that element to it as well so hopefully we fall on the right side of it this year.”

With many of the squad backing up from 2017 Alex believes they have the opportunity to learn from last year's mistakes and can capitalise this time around, and he's nailed down the key area they need to improve.

'Probably our discipline, in terms of silly fouls, not so much losing control.

'We gave away some costly errors at certain times defensively. Defensive errors have definitely been a big improvement. And that's largely just from the boys being a year older, and playing a year longer.

'Last year we were guilty of committing too many free kicks and that might have been just the boys adjusting from the Saturday football against the men to what you can get away with against the schoolboys.

'The games are refereed slightly differently - against other schoolboys they need to dial it down a little bit.”

One thing Alex is upbeat about heading into the tournament is the internal competition for places in his squad.

'Players are putting in some good performances, testing out the depth chart if you like. Boys are putting their hands up for a start, so there's plenty of confidence going away that we've got 16 boys that we can trust with the performance side of it.”

Making use of the full squad he has with him for the tournament is one of the keys to success, he says.

'You absolutely have to do that, especially on the first two days. So boys don't burn out and to maximise freshness so you can keep the level of intensity we want to be able to play at. We have to trust them that they're good enough to do that.

'Obviously there's a difference between your best player and 16th best player but if you can get a lot out of players 13, 14, 15, 16 in your squad that's how you do well in these tournaments.”

Tauranga Boys' open their tournament Monday morning against Wellington's Scots College and St Peter's of Auckland in the afternoon, then complete pool play against Christchurch's Burnside High on Tuesday morning.

Playoffs then follow for the next two days leading to the finals on Friday.