National Club Sevens tournament in Hamilton this weekend

Fourteen of New Zealand’s leading sevens rugby clubs descend on Hamilton this coming Saturday and Sunday to contest the New Zealand Club Sevens tournament.

As defending champions of the Middlesex County Wavell Wakefield Cup, Melville is hosting the tournament. Last year they won at the event hosted by 2015 winners Wainuiomata, who themselves had beaten Rangataua in the Bay of Plenty the previous year.

Melville subsequently swept all before them in 2016 Waikato fifteens rugby, so will be tough to dislodge on their own turf.

Last year’s tournament at Wainuiomata was high class and exciting. Melville defeated Wellington’s Upper Hutt Rams 34-24 in the final played in hot, dusty conditions. Both sides exchanged three tries each, but Melville pulled away in the second half. Melville’s side last year featured four members of the Hamilton Boys’ High School team that won the 2015 Condor Sevens, including Sevu Reece who has subsequently starred for Waikato.

Auckland’s Suburbs won last year’s Plate final, Mount Maunganui won the Bowl, Wellington’s Old Boys University won the Shield and Wellington’s Marist St Pat’s won the women’s tournament, which is not being staged this year.

Some of the country’s well-known sevens players are expected to take in the 2017 tournament. The rules of the tournament also state that each team can field one invitational player and one school-aged player.

As per the tradition of this tournament, all the country’s 2016 club sevens champions received automatic invitations, and many accepted the offer. From last year, seven teams are returning to contest the Middlesex Cup.

Hosts Melville will be joined by the Hamilton Marist Ravens, who bypassed last weekend’s New Zealand Marist tournament in favour of this.

Awanui from Northland knocked out Suburbs from Auckland in last year’s quarter-finals and both return. 2015 champions Rangataua bring back the Bay of Plenty flair, while the Upper Hutt Rams return with several Wellington representative players in their mix.

New sides from last year’s tournament include recent Auckland club sevens champions Eden, who beat Suburbs in the Auckland tournament semi-final and then Auckland Marist in the final. Marist, like Hamilton Marist, opted out of the NZ Marist tournament last weekend for this and are the third Auckland contender.

Ardmore Marist represents New Zealand provincial champions Counties Manukau, while Napier Technical Old Boys enter from Magpies country, Linton Army from the Manawatu, Ngamatapouri from Wanganui and Massey from North Harbour. The sole South Island raider is South Canterbury club Geraldine. 

Confirmed Pools and draws and some key information about the tournament will be published here later this week.

Teams by region (subject to change):

Northland: Awanui
North Harbour: Massey
Auckland: Suburbs, Eden, Auckland Marist
Counties Manukau: Ardmore Marist
Waikato: Hamilton Marist, Melville, two Invitational teams (ineligible to make final)
Bay of Plenty: Rangataua
Hawke’s Bay: Napier Technical Old Boys
Manawatu: Linton Army
Wanganui: Ngamatapouri
Wellington: Upper Hutt Rams
South Canterbury: Geraldine

About the tournament

The tournament was started in Dunedin in 1951 and first won by local club Zingari-Richmond. It fell away in the 1990s and wasn’t contested for a decade up to its revival in 2006.

In 65 years of competition, it has been held by 26 individual winners - nine from the North Island and 17 from the South Island. It had been held by South Island clubs continuously for more than three decades before Auckland’s Pakuranga won in 2013 to become the first North Island team to prevail since Hamilton Old Boys in 1976.

The men’s trophies have a military flavour – the championship finalists will play for both the Middlesex Cup and the Bosnian AK 74 Bayonet.

The previous 10 winners have been (not played for in 2012):

2006 Green Island (Dunedin)
2007 Green Island (Dunedin)
2008 Alhambra-Union (Dunedin)
2009 Alhambra-Union (Dunedin)
2010 Otago University (Dunedin)
2011 Burnham (Canterbury)
2013 Pakuranga (Auckland)
2014 Rangataua (Bay of Plenty)
2015: Wainuiomata (Wellington)
2016: Melville (Waikato)

View the 2016 tournament’s Facebook Events page at - https://www.facebook.com/MCNC7s/

Watch highlights of the 2016 final at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TTUO_BkG_w