Invitational, provincial, local & school sevens tournaments
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@Machpants See my post with the team naming above.
Also, see @ARHS post about the loss to Japan.
The loss to Fiji was to be expected. Whoever is in our team and their team, we seem unable to beat them. Although, it was 3 tries for and against. The difference was made by missed conversions. Kurt Baker managed to miss the easiest of easy attempts, right in front of the posts.
Particularly for the men, this is not more than a pre-season tournament. The result means zilch for the Series, just like preseason games don't mean anything for the SR or Mitre 10 Cup season.
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@Higgins said in Invitational, provincial, local & school sevens tournaments:
If it is a nothing game then they can damn well pay under a name like Barbarians or Centurions or Trout Fishers or anything other than the name they are playing under in this tournament.
This 7s team have been dragging the All Black's brand through the mud for a long time now. Did much better as NZ 7s!
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The name doesn't bother me one bit.
And to refresh some memories: the All Blacks 7s are the current (2018) World Champions and Commonwealth Champions. They also won several legs of the World Sevens Series in recent years. Plenty to be proud of, despite some disappointing results.
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@Stargazer And just to remind you of something more recent they also lost to Japan in Suva this week. You are only as good as your last result. Incidentally the last NZ coach that lost to Japan in 7s got the sack shortly after Rio. For the sake of consistency and fairness the current coach must be shaking in his boots.
And now I come to think of it didn't Japan finish last of the regular teams get relegated from the World Series 7s last year with Ireland taking their place as one of the core teams taking part? -
@Machpants said in Invitational, provincial, local & school sevens tournaments:
@Higgins said in Invitational, provincial, local & school sevens tournaments:
If it is a nothing game then they can damn well pay under a name like Barbarians or Centurions or Trout Fishers or anything other than the name they are playing under in this tournament.
This 7s team have been dragging the All Black's brand through the mud for a long time now. Did much better as NZ 7s!
And what is worse the Development 7s now seem to be playing in shirts emblazoned with New Zealand Sevens on the left breast
@Stargazer said in Hawke's Bay Sevens:Tyrone Dodd-Edwards will play for the All Blacks Sevens Development team in Japan, tomorrow. His name is missing from the AB7s Dev team list (published on 14 Feb), so maybe has come in as injury replacement (or the list is wrong; wouldn't be the first time).
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@Higgins said in Invitational, provincial, local & school sevens tournaments:
@Stargazer And just to remind you of something more recent they also lost to Japan in Suva this week. You are only as good as your last result. Incidentally the last NZ coach that lost to Japan in 7s got the sack shortly after Rio. For the sake of consistency and fairness the current coach must be shaking in his boots.
And now I come to think of it didn't Japan finish last of the regular teams get relegated from the World Series 7s last year with Ireland taking their place as one of the core teams taking part?I completely disagree with that bolded bit. Especially considering that this is not a full-strength team and it's preseason.
That loss to Japan, yesterday, means nothing. They're preparing for the season and have included several debutants in the squad (haven't you read my previous posts, including the one with the line-up?). Maybe Japan has sent a full-strength squad (I don't know)? Perhaps they should have called this the All Blacks Sevens Development team (like the Black Ferns Development team for this tournament) or the NZ Men's Development team, but as I said, I don't really care. I'm not a fair-weather supporter.
IMO, you're just overreacting/exaggerating. But each to their own.
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The Black Ferns 7s Development team will take on Australia in the Final at 4.30pm NZT.
It's called a "Pre-liminary Final" for some reason, probably because there are several separate tournaments going on, including the Olympic qualifiers. Maybe there's also an overall final.
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@Stargazer Excuse me but they are using the name given to the top sevens side. Regardless of who they field the record books will always record a loss against the team not good enough to be in the best fifteen sevens team. When historians scan the record books in fifty years time all they will see is that see the result recorded for the game played in Suva against Japan by the team carrying the name of the recognised top NZRFU team shows a seventeen fourteen loss. There will be no asterix alongside with a note recording that it might not have been the top side.
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@Higgins A good historian will also look at the composition of the team and look for names of players. A good historian will also notice that this is a tournament that isn't part of the World Series and takes place before the start of the season (i.e. preseason). A "historian" who only looks at "All Blacks 7s 14 - 17 Japan" is merely a (hobby) statistician.
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@Stargazer Some of those players being used in Suva could well become future superstars, maybe even as early as this years World Series 7s. "Historians" in fifty years time will not know 7s Hall Of Fame player A was not a Hall of Famer standard player until say making an astonishing breakthrough at the Hamilton 7s by scoring six tries in the Final against Fiji on January 26 some three months later. Player B on the other hand might not became a superstar until 2021 and player C might just become a wider training group member.
Regardless it still shows in the Official Records as a loss just as the real All Blacks one against Ireland in Chicago does even though that one was primarily a money making end of season venture. The loss against Japan just happened in the Oceania Sevens Championship which appears to be an official event (albeit somewhat below the World Series 7s) and not something like the Fred Hollows Fundraising Invitational 7s supported by RD Patel Group Ltd. To further emphasis the Oceania Sevens Championship's legitimacy the better finisher out of Australia and Samoa qualifies for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1086815/oceania-sevens-championship-tokyo-2020 -
@Stargazer said in Invitational, provincial, local & school sevens tournaments:
The Black Ferns 7s Development team will take on Australia in the Final at 4.30pm NZT.
It's called a "Pre-liminary Final" for some reason, probably because there are several separate tournaments going on, including the Olympic qualifiers. Maybe there's also an overall final.
The All Blacks 7s will play the Solomon Islands for 7th place at 3.24pm.
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For people who don't know how this tournament works and want to know (others can stop reading now
)- there were three different pools in the men's tournament. Nations in Pool A are NOT playing for Olympic qualification (NZ, Fiji, Japan, Niue and New Caledonia). Nations in Pool B and C are playing for Olympic qualification (10 nations, including Australia, Samoa, Tonga and several much weaker teams).
- after the pool stage, the two highest qualified nations from Pool A (Fiji and Japan) play the "International Final". The remaining three nations, including NZ, end up in the 7th-14th play-offs.
- after the pool stage, the highest ranked team from pool B (Samoa) plays the highest ranked team from pool A (Australia) in the "Olympic Final". The 3rd and lower ranked teams from pool B and C are combined with the remaining nations from pool A in the 7th - 14th place play-offs.
There are also an Oceania Championship 5th place Final, bronze Final and Final.
I assume the Championship Final will be played between the winner of the International Final and the winner of the Olympic Final (and the bronze final between the losers of those matches).
It's clear that the composition of the pools would have been very different if they didn't have to separate nations based on whether they're playing for Olympic qualification, or not. NZ and Fiji, for example, would never have been in the same pool without this separation, and this would have affected the results and, therefore, the rankings at the end of the tournament. The AB7s would probably have ended up in the bronze final, or maybe even the Final, instead of the 7th place play-off.
The women's tournament is slightly different because there are fewer teams, but again, there is a separate path for countries that use this tournament as a warm-up tournament and nations playing for Olympic qualification.
NZ plays Austalia in the International Final (both countries have already qualified for the Olympics).
Fiji plays PNG in the Olympic Final.There is also a separate Deaf Rugby Tournament.
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Results:
Men's 7th place play-off: AB7s 38 - 7 Solomon Islands
Women's "International" Final: BF7s 0 - 12 AustraliaThe BFs started the game with a few players out with injury and didn't have the full bench. Early in the 2nd half, Portia Woodman went down. Not sure whether this was her old injury - that kept her from playing last season - playing up, or a new injury (hamstring). Fingers crossed it's not too bad.
Edited to add that Selica Winiata was the referee in this women's final. It's her first international tournament as a sevens referee and she is still an active player (hasn't retired yet). She did well.
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Results:
International Men's Final
Fiji 33 - 0 JapanWomen's Olympic Final
Fiji 36 - 0 PNGMen's Olympic Final
Australia 19 - 12 SamoaWomen's Olympic Bronze Match
Samoa 45 - 0 Solomon IslandsOlympic Men's Bronze Match
Tonga 31 - 0 PNG.
Oceania Women's Championship Bronze Match (loser Internat Final v loser Olympic Final)
Black Ferns 7s 29 - 0 PNGOceania Men's Championship Bronze Match (loser Internat Final v loser Olympic Final)
Samoa 21 - 26 JapanOceania Women's Championship Final (winner Internat Final v winner Olympic Final)
Australia 24 - 12 FijiOceania Men's Championship Final (winner Internat Final v winner Olympic Final)
Australia 22 - 7 FijiThe Australian men's team and Fijian Women's team have qualified for the 2020 Olympics.
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Since last weekend (maybe even earlier), the sevens season is well underway.
There will be more sevens tournaments, but these are the most important provincial & school tournaments in the upcoming weeks:
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Condor Sevens: Thu 28 November - Sun 1 December 2019 at King's College, Auckland
(28-29 Nov: U15 boys & girls / 30 Nov-1 Dec: Open boys & girls) -
Qualifier Tournaments for the National Sevens - Sat 30 November 2019:
- Northern Regional Sevens at Memorial Park, Cambridge
- Central Regional Sevens at Playford Park, Levin
- Southern Regional Sevens at Alpine Energy Stadium, Timaru
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World Schools Sevens - Fri 13 & Sat 14 December 2019 at Pakuranga Rugby Club, Auckland
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National Sevens - Sat 14 & Sun 15 December 2019 at Tauranga Domain
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