Hawke's Bay Sevens
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So today, the HB Sevens men and women play at the Central Zone Sevens tournament in Levin.
Teams:
Men: 1. Thomas Fogerty (CHB), 2. Cole Eru (CHB), 3. Damien Scott (CHB), 4. Jayden Rihia (HRS), 5. Hayden Hann (Pirates), 6. Neria Fomai (c, HRS), 7. Mason Emerson (HRS), 8. Jeriah Mua (HBHS), 9. Trent Hape (HBHS), 10. Joseph Penitito (NOBM), 11. Matt Garland (Pirates), 12. Kaleb Whakataka (Taradale)Women: 1 Laurae Blake, 2. Odelle Edmonds, 3. Jamie Heather, 4. Teilah Ferguson, 5. Julie Ferguson-Ngawaka, 6. Niamh Jefferson, 7. Nina Pineaha, 8. Felicity Powdrell, 9. Kirsty- Rae Sciascia, 10. Shaylee Tipiwai, 11. Gemma Woods
The men have just won their first game v Horowhenua-Kapiti 21- 14.
Women: Hawke's Bay 17 - 7 Poverty Bay
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Wellington Women 39 - 7 Hawke's Bay Women
In this game you could really notice how much more game time the Wellington women get compared to the Bay women. The Wellington team includes current Black Ferns/Black Ferns 7s players, NPC players, many players from St Mary's College, who made the girls Top 4 Final and won the Condor 7s last weekend.
The Bay team has a 39 year-old captain who has been a Black Fern a long time ago (I think) and another former Black Fern/Hawke's Bay Tui, but the Bay didn't play NPC this year, no school girls who played anywhere near Top 4 level, and no participation in Condor 7s or other tournaments.
It's good the Bay has been able to field a team this year (unlike previous years), so these girls get some experience. All things considered, they aren't doing badly and they will get another opportunity to play at the Nationals in January.
Edit: they have one more game to play, for 3rd/4th place.
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Hawkes Bay Women 5-17 Taranaki Women
Bay women don't get further than 4th place (out of 6 teams). I saw a lot of handling errors and even when they had the ball, they often went backwards. Bad weather not really an excuse, because the rain affected the opponents just as much.
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Hawkes Bay Men 21-12 Manawatu Men
3rd place in the bag. How much difference does possession make! In the semis, they hardly touched the ball and Taranaki scored try after try by slicing through our defence. It looked to go the same way in the first half of this game, but then Manawatu started making mistakes and Emerson scored an awesome try. That seemed to change the course of the game, and the Bay got better and Manawatu hardly got the ball.
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Does anyone know the team playing in the BOP sevens this weekend?
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@Stockcar86 No, I tried to find it as well. Either it will be in tomorrow's HBT or we'll never find out. HBRU are shit in communication.
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Final pool game of the BOP 7s:
Hawke's Bay v North Harbour: 24 to 10.If my quick calculations are right, both the Bay and Manawatu have the same number of log points. It looks like the number of tries is going to decide whether the Bay or Manawatu progresses to the Cup semi, or will play the Plate semi instead. They'll also need to be the best placed number 2 to reach the Cup semi.
Waikato finish first in the pool, Harbour last.
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Both Hawke's Bay and Manawatu missed out on the Cup semis and ended up playing each other in the Plate semis.
Manawatu won that game 26-24.This means that the Bay share the 7th place with one of the two participating teams from BOP (out of 12 teams).
Still haven't seen any team line-up, so I don't know whether the strongest possible team played today. Hopefully not.
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Hawke's Bay teams for the National 7s this weekend:
Men: Damien Scott, Billy Ropiha, Matt Garland, Tamati Samuels, Hayden Hann, Neria Fomai, Mason Emerson, Jeriah Mua, Trent Hape, Tane McGuire, Cole Eru, Ricky Hayes
Women: Laurae Blake, Nina Pineaha-Hyslop, Teilah Ferguson, Shaylee Tipiwai (c), Hope Hakopa, Felicity Powdrell, Niamh Jefferson, Trisha Hina, Kate Bradshaw, Sulieti Halafihi, Abbey Collier, Jaimee Edwards
Good to see we got Billy Ropiha back from the AB7s. I vaguely remember (but may be wrong) Joe Penitito getting injured at the Central Zone qualifier; he's not in the squad, which is a big loss.
Guildford is co-captain for Waikato. Such a pity he isn't playing for us.
Go Emerson, this must be your weekend! Get those short legs running ...
First and third men's game will probably be televised:
10:45am v N Harbour
1:05pm v Southland
3:35pm v WaikatoThe 2nd women's game may be televised as well:
11:05am v Wellington
2:35pm v BOP
4:55pm v Auckland -
@Stargazer Looking at the mens team, are there actually any forwards players in the squad?
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@Stockcar86 I think that loan player from Otago, Damien Scott, is a forward? Jeriah Mua is a flanker in XVs. From what I've read in the HBT, Ricky Hayes has played at lock, loosie and 2nd 5/8 for NOBM; don't know where he played for the HB U19s.
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Convincing first win from the Bay men. Emerson scored 3 tries, Fomai and Ropiha both scored one. Conversions by Samuels.
Some interesting kicking from Ropiha during the game; wonder whether he picked that up during AB7s training.
The Bay women are probably now being slaughtered by Wellington. Expect a big defeat; hope for better.
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Hawke's Bay women lose to Wellington 0-41.
Our men beat Southland 24 to 21, but were behind at half time (12-14), so this suggests a close game.
Waikato has also won both their games, so I guess the Bay will finish at least 2nd in their pool and qualify for the Cup Quarter Final!
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This seems to become another forgettable tournament for the Bay.
After losing 5 - 28 to Waikato yesterday, the men's team lost their Cup QF against Counties Manukau without scoring any points: 0 - 22. Looks like the "missing tackles" disease has spread to sevens. They will now take on Ta$man in the Plate SF (2.35pm).
The women lost their Bowl SF against Ta$man: 0 - 15 and will play Harbour in the 11th/12th place play-off (not televised). Never expected much from the women's team because they've been off the grid for years and this is a team for which they had to get one player out of retirement and get two loan players from Poverty Bay to be able to field a team. Consequence of lack of any interest and stupid decisions from the union, which made players walking off to league and other sports in droves the last few years.
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At least they qualified for the Nationals this year.
Emerson did his NZ chances no damage with a pretty good performance all tourney.
With realistically only 3 class players (Emerson, Ropiha, Garland) it is pretty hard to win games considering the depth of some of the other teams.
