Northern United, Marist St Pat’s and Scots College win local sevens tournaments

Above: Northern United’s Esi Komaisavai was in top form all day in today’s WRFU club tournament, sparking his side to victory in the Cup semi-final and final.

Updated on Sunday morning. The WRFU is also updating the series points on Monday. 

The Northern United Men’s and Marist St Pat’s Women’s sides won today’s Cup finals of the American Ambassador’s Sevens tournament second leg at Mary Crowther Park, while Scots College were the winners of the Wellington U15 Sevens at Naenae College.

Northern United ran out 36-5 winners over the Wellington Axemen in today’s men’s Cup final, while the Marist St Pat’s Women beat Petone 30-5 in their final.

Norths knocked out last week’s winners and defending champions the Upper Hutt Rams 28-7 in the Cup semi-final.

The third and final leg of the tournament and the presentation of the American Ambassador’s Cup (men) and Eleanor Roosevelt Trophy (women) is next Saturday at Ngati Toa Domain.

The WRFU is updating the points on Monday.

Scots College beat St Pat’s Silverstream 24-19 in the final of the U15 tournament (see more below).

In a third tournament played today in Masterton, featuring a composite Wellington boys team, Hastings Boys’ High School took out the Hurricanes Youth Council Sevens. Hastings BHS, featuring all their guns except for Kini Naholo found themselves trailing home school Wairarapa College 5-17 at halftime but came back to win 33-17. Manukura won the girls division.

Two Tournament Teams were named, as follows:

Girls’ Division: Renee Karaitiana (Nga Wahine College); Milly McKay (Wairarapa College); Paris Paul (Manukura College); Kelly Cook (Manukura College); Courtney Walsh (St. Peter’s College); Maia Wairaiki (Manukura College); Janie Grevatt (Wairarapa College).

Boys’ Division: Devon Flanders (Hastings Boys’ High School); Jason Tuitama (Rongotai College); Nikora Broughton (Hato Paora College); Misi Faimalo (Wellington Barbarians, St. Patrick’s College, Wellington); Lincoln McClutchie (Hastings Boys’ High School); Sam Smith (Wairarapa College); Danny Toala (Hastings Boys’ High School).

In beating the Rams in the semi-finals at Mary Crowther Park, Norths jumped to a quick leading scoring three tries. Esi Komaisavai was in sparkling form setting up the first try after a break from a scrum and scoring the third with a searing outside break.

Upper Hutt rallied and captain Hayden Schrijvers scored two tries, including one bust where he spun 180 degrees and out of the grasp of three defenders.

Wellington accounted for Ories B in the other semi-final. Wellington's breakdown work was excellent as they hustled their opponents into mistakes. Ollie Spasford, Dale Sabbagh and Paddy Hughes were among the try scorers.

Norths were fast out of the blocks in the final, laying on three quick tries and racing to a 17- 0 lead. The match was in the bag when Fala Tuala scored in the left hand corner right on halftme and they turned holding a 24-0 lead.

It was game over after the break when Luke Bowden made a big break, leading to their fifth try in the opposite corner. Wellington came back with a consolation try but it was too little too late.

The consolation Cup final was a thriller. Little could separate Tawa and MSP. Tawa led 14-0 early but MSP came back with two tries of their own to trail 12-14 at the turnaround. Both sides scored again and it was 24-24 at fulltime, forcing extra time. Telea Seumanutafa broke through and scored the winner to give them a 29-24 win. It was good consolation for Tawa, who lost some players throughout the day to injury, including Randall Bishop who took a nasty gash on his ear.

Johnsonville beat Avalon to win the Bowl Final.

The run of play in the women’s final was similar to the men’s Cup final, with MSP scoring three straight unanswered tries, to Jane Bryce, Cheyne Copeland and Monica Tagoai to lead Petone 15-0 at halftime. They scored twice more after the interval before Petone got on the board and then Paige Va'auli ran clear at the end to seal the win for MSP.

Earlier, play started at 9.00am on a glorious Wainuiomata day, with pool play running through to 3.30pm.

The Ories men’s team, calling themselves Ories B, was late arriving and they defaulted their opening outing of the day to MSP. Ories later went on to beat Wellington B 66-0, to register the day’s biggest win. They had a crucial 29-26 win over Tawa, which helped to push MSP out of the Cup semi-finals.

Wellington’s top side caused the first big result of the day when they beat the Rams 17-12. The Axemen were up 12-0 early and held on to win.

The women’s competition was super-competitive. Petone caused a minor upset early in the day by beating Ories 14-10. Ories then went and beat Norths 24-22 in a pool play thriller, while MSP scored a try on fulltime to draw 12-12 with Petone and Norths beat MSP 26-12 when they met. 

In a straight final, MSP prevailed over Petone 30-5 (see above), while Ories beat Norths 26-19 on the adjacent field in the playoff for third and fourth.

The first tournament of the day to finish was the College Sport Wellington U15 Sevens at Naenae College where there was some cracking rugby, and unexpected results, despite only six teams taking part.

The final was as close as it comes with Scots College overcoming defending champions St Pat’s Silverstream 24-19 in golden point extra time, after scoring at the death of regulation to send it into overtime.

However, the two sides took circuitous routes to the final after both were upset in pool play; Scots lost 19-29 to Wellington College while Silverstream were tipped over 5-7 by Taita. In the the semi-finals Scots narrowly edged Taita 26-24, while Silverstream overcome Wellington College 31-21 to set up the final. Taita - who were the real entertainers of the day -  took third winning 29-26 but only after College came within inches of coming back from 7-29 down, while Naenae saw off minnows Newlands for fifth.