Ambassador's and U15s Sevens tournaments on Saturday

UPDATED: There are two sevens tournaments on Saturday for supporters to follow.

The Wellington Secondary Schools U15s tournament is being played at Naenae College, with organisers having confirmed a seven-team boys tournament and no girls section.

The U15 tournament starts at 9.20am with pool play and ends with the final at 2.20pm. 

The pools for this tournament – are:

Pool A: Scots College, Wellington College, Rongotai College, Wainuiomata High School
Pool B: St Pat’s Silverstream, St Pat’s Town, Taita College

Following this is the Condor 7s U15 tournament in Auckland for any Wellington school that chooses to attend, which runs over two days and precedes the main Condor 7s tournament, which Scots, Silverstream (boys) and St Mary’s College and Wainuiomata HS (girls) will be attending.

The second sevens tournament is at Onepoto Park, the gateway to Titahi Bay, and is the second leg of three of the Wellington Rugby Football Union’s American Ambassador’s Sevens series.

The confirmed teams and clubs for leg two are:

Men’s (16 teams):

Tawa, OBU Green, Upper Hutt Rams 1, Upper Hutt Rams 2, MSP Red, Norths Blue, Norths White, Petone, Wainuiomata, Poneke, Wellington Axemen, Paremata-Plimmerton, Oriental-Rongotai, Johnsonville, HOBM 1, Avalon Wolves.

Women’s (eight teams):

Marist St Pat’s, Northern United, Petone, Paremata-Plimmerton, Oriental-Rongotai, Old Boys University Hutt Old Boys Marist.

The day’s rugby at Onepoto Park starts at 9.00am across two fields with pool play running through to 1.49pm and the knockout matches starting thereafter leading to the Women’s Cup final at 5.13pm and the Men’s Cup final at 5.47pm.

The first leg at Maoribank Park a fortnight ago started in cold conditions but as the day warmed up so did the rugby.

Northern United’s men’s and women’s teams won the first round, that featured fewer teams and fewer leading individual players expected to turn out this Saturday, who were playing for the Wellington Development and Wellington Pride teams that afternoon.

In the men’s section, Norths had six straight wins to win the day, beating defending champions the Upper Hutt Rams 17-10, Wellington Black (by default), Petone 28-0, Poneke 26-5 and then Johnsonville 24-0 in the semi-final and Marist St Pat’s 25-5 in the final. Johnny Teleaga was the the team's Player of the Tournament, after Norths also won the Tawa tournament the previous weekend. 

The extra carrot for the men’s series winner is to represent Wellington in Auckland in early February at the New Zealand Club Sevens Championships for the Middlesex Trophy.

In the Women’s Eleanor Roosevelt Cup section, Northern United beat last year’s winners in the final at Maoribank Park. With seven teams, including Oriental-Rongotai who didn’t contest the first tournament, this is still wide open.

The points after the first leg are:

Men’s: Norths Blue 20, MSP 17, Upper Hutt Rams and Johnsonville 15, Tawa 13, Wellington 12, HOBM and Poneke 10, OBU 8, Paremata-Plimmerton 7, Upper Hutt Rams Black and Petone 5, Norths White 3, Wainuiomata 1, Oriental-Rongotai and Avalon 0.

Women’s: Norths 20, MSP 17, Paremata-Plimmerton 15, OBU, Petone, Ories, HOBM and Avalon all 0.