Upper Hutt Rams and Ories win Open 7s tournament

UPDATED: If today’s warm-up tournament rugby is a fair gauge, then no one will want to miss any of the American Ambassador’s WRFU club championship 7s tournament at Trentham Memorial next Saturday.

Nine hours of action-packed rugby was played at today’s Open 7s tournament played on the top fields of Porirua Park, won by the Upper Hutt Rams (men’s) and Oriental-Rongotai (women’s) teams.

The Rams and Ories will go into next the American Ambassador’s event as warm favourites in the men’s and women’s divisions after both playing through the day unbeaten and running away with comfortable Cup final victories.

Both had too much pace out wide all day, with the likes of Max Pearson and Jordan Simpson-Hefft for the Rams and Alyesha Leti-l’iga and Timena Tuamai’i for Ories scoring numerous tries between them.

In the Cup finals, the Rams blasted past Hutt Old Boys Marist 47-21, after scoring five tries in the first half and leading 33-7 at the turn, and Ories pulled clear of Wainuiomata in winning 31-10 with Leti-l’iga scoring a hat-trick and 14 tries in total in five matches.

In the men’s section, the other two Cup semi-finalists were Old Boys University and Avalon, who both came through the round-robin matches as pool winners. The Rams defeated OBU 19-10 in one semi-final and HOBM beat Avalon in the other, with Fereti Soloa and Lui Luamanu each scoring two tries in their semi-final.

Tawa defeated Johnsonville in the men’s Plate final.

Tawa had beaten Wainuiomata 38-17 in their Plate semi-final match, with both teams having players sent to the sin-bin, whilst Johnsonville progressed through to the Plate final by default as their opposition, Ories A, had packed up and gone home thinking that they hadn’t progressed out of their pool.

The women’s competition was a straight round-robin, with six teams entered. Ories had beaten Wainuiomata 17-12 earlier in the day, whilst Wainuiomata had also lost to Avalon 17-5 but the NZIS team had beaten Avalon 22-17 to see Wainuiomata qualify in second. Avalon had conceded two yellow cards in this loss.

In the Men’s round-robin, OBU had started off strongly with Pool B wins over Petone and Wainuiomata, as well as Ories B. OBU’s 50-0 win, eight-try win over Petone was the biggest win of the day. For OBU, Morgan Chalmers, Sam Chamberlain and Te Wehi Wright looked sharp – the latter leaving early to go home and continued preparing for his university exams on Monday.

Chamberlain scored a first half hat-trick in OBU’s 33-7 win over Ories B, while Tuga Mativa was another player to score a first half hat-trick, in Ories A’s 40-7 win over Paremata-Plimmerton.

In Pool C, the Norths B side’s 7-5 win over the Upper Hutt Rams B team was the lowest score of the day. Norths B was also involved in the day's only draw, 21-21 against Ories A.

As well as Petone, other clubs that failed to progress past pool play included Marist St Pat’s, Wellington, the NZIS team, Northern United and Paremata-Plimmerton.

The Upper Hutt Rams scored 21 tries in pool play, the most, ahead of HOBM who scored 19 and OBU who crossed for 17.

Many more leading players are expected back for various clubs for next Saturday’s American Ambassador’s tournament.

Results
(All scores below unofficial)

Men’s Pool Matches
Norths A v Tawa 19 – Norths A 5
Paremata-Plimmerton 14 - Norths B 12
Upper Hutt Rams A 12 – Wellington 0
HOBM A 28 – Ories A 7
Wainuiomata 26 – Petone 14
Avalon 24 – Johnsonville 12
MSP A 28 – HOBM B 17
HOBM A 24 – Paremata-Plimmerton 7
Tawa 45 – MSP B 0
Norths B 7 – UH Rams B 5
OBU 28 – Wainuiomata 19
Johnsonville 17 – MSP A 12
Ories B 23 – Petone 17
Avalon 47 – NZIS 12
Upper Hutt Rams 41 – Tawa 5
HOBM A – 29 – Norths B 14
Wellington 33 – MSP B 21
Ories A 33 – UH Rams B 5
OBU 50 – Petone 0
Avalon 19 – MSP A 17
HOBM 22 – NZIS 17
Ories A 40 – Paremata-Plimmerton 0
Upper Hutt Rams 45 – MSP B 7
HOBM A 26 – Upper Hutt Rams B 0
Johnsonville 24 – HOBM B 10
OBU 33 – Ories B 0
MSP A 31 – NZIS 10
Norths A 35 – MSP B 5
Paremata-Plimmerton 15 – Upper Hutt Rams B 12
Tawa 24 – Wellington 5
Ories A 21 – Norths B 21
Wainuiomata 19 – Ories B 0
Johnsonville 32 – NZIS 21
Avalon 17 – HOBM B 12

Women’s Pool Matches
Ories 22 – Avalon 0
MSP 28 – NZIS 17
Wainuiomata 33 – HOBM 5
Avalon 15 – NZIS 7
Ories 17 – Wainuiomata 12
HOBM 24 – NZIS 5
NZIS 22 – Avalon 17
Ories 36 – HOBM 0
Wainuiomata 29 – MSP 5
Avalon 17 – Wainuiomata 5
Ories 47 – NZIS 0
MSP 24 – HOBM 5
Ories 19 – MSP 12
Wainuiomata 24 – NZIS 5
Avalon met HOBM

Men’s Plate semi-finals
Johnsonville beat Ories A by default
Tawa 38 – Wainuiomata 17

Men’s Cup semi-finals
Upper Hutt Rams A 19 – OBU 10
HOBM A 29 – Avalon 7

Plate final
Tawa beat Johnsonville

Women’s final
Ories 31 – Wainuiomata 10

Men’s Cup final
Upper Hutt Rams A 47 – HOBM A 21