Marist is pleased to welcome Lionel Randall, his wife Taryn and their two boys, Oliver and Alistair to the Marist Family.

The Randall’s move to Auckland from Tauranga, where Lionel will look to build on what was an incredibly successful 2019 season at the Tauranga Club.
2019 saw Lionel not only coached the Tauranga Mens and Womens Senior teams through to National League finals weekend, but Lionel also coached Tauranga age group teams to a number of firsts, for the Club.
Nationally, Lionel was head coach of the 2019 New Zealand U20 Men’s Team that competed at the FINA Junior World Championships and is Assistant Coach to the New Zealand National Men’s Team that competed at the FINA World Championships and FINA Intercontinental World League

Lionel’s immediate role, at Marist, will be to lead the 2020 Marist Senior Women campaign and prepare the Under 20 and Under 18 Women for the 2020 Pan Pacs tournament. Lionel will also work as Assistant Coach to Jacque Venter in the Senior Men program and is looking forward to working with the Clubs age grade teams later this year.

Marist is excited to have someone of Lionel’s calibre, knowledge and experience join us. Lionel shares in the Clubs desire to arm players with the skills and knowledge to develop and grow, through water polo to achieve their life goals.

The warmest of Marist welcomes to Lionel, Taryn, Oliver and Alistair.

More about Lionel, from Lionel:

Originally from South Africa where I served as a teacher at some of South Africa’s leading boys schools.

A family man, married to Taryn who I met in 2005, Taryn has been a massive supporter of mine ever since we met. We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary recently and together we have two beautiful boys, Oliver who is 4 and Alistair who is 2, the boys have grown up as part of the Water Polo family wherever we have been and will be seen poolside this coming season enthusiastically cheering on their new teams.

We took the decision to emigrate to New Zealand in February 2018 which saw me take up a Water Polo coaching role and Taryn continuing her passion as a science teacher.

An incredible opportunity for me to teach and join the team at Auckland Grammar sees us moving up to Auckland in mid-January.

I am excited and proud to be joining the Marist family where I will be coaching the Senior Women’s team in the 2020 Honda New Zealand National League.

MY “STARTING 7” THINGS ABOUT ME

1. Favourite Band: Dire Straits
2. Favourite Food: Traditional South African braai (its basically the BIGGER brother of the Kiwi BBQ)
3. Holiday: Anywhere surrounded by nature, far from crowds of people.
4. Do to relax: Walks on the beach or in nature.
5. Favourite Actor: Denzel Washington6.
6. Favourite Movie: Moneyball with Brad Pitt
7. Favourite Book: Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Water Polo HIGHLIGHTS:

21 years as a Water Polo Coach or Referee

• Head Coach, New Zealand U20 Men’s Team, FINA Junior World Championships
• Assistant Coach, New Zealand National Men’s Team including FINA World Championships and FINA Intercontinental World League
• Head Coach of South Africa U16 Boys, European tour
• Assistant Coach South Africa U18 (Historic 4 – 0 series win over Australia)
• 4 appointments as FINA International Water Polo Referee including 2 x Junior World Championship appointments