2016-2017 World Sevens Series

[Stargazer]

The All Blacks 7s beat England 19-0 in the QF. Was a good game. Mikkelson scored twice; the other try was scored by Forbes. England looked quite average.

They'll play Fiji in the Semi Final at 11:06am tomorrow .

[booboo]

@Stargazer said in 2016-2017 World Sevens Series:

The All Blacks 7s beat England 19-0 in the QF. Was a good game. Mikkelson scored twice; the other try was scored by Forbes. England looked quite average.

They'll play Fiji in the Semi Final at 11:06am tomorrow .

Whey hey. Awesome result.

[Stargazer]

This weekend are the Vancouver 7s (men's series only).

All Blacks 7s squad:
Scott Curry – Captain (Bay of Plenty)
Dylan Collier (Southland)
Ambrose Curtis (Manawatu)
DJ Forbes – Captain (Counties Manukau)
Iopu Iopu-Aso (Taranaki)
Trael Joass ( Ta$man)
Vilimoni Koroi (Otago)
Tim Mikkelson (Waikato)
Sione Molia (Counties Manukau)
Sherwin Stowers (Counties Manukau)
Isaac Te Tamaki (Waikato)
Beaudein Waaka (Taranaki)

Thirteenth player:
Andrew Knewstubb ( Ta$man)

Travelling reserve:
Tone Ng Shiu ( Ta$man)

Interview with Scott Waldrom:

SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds

Pool games on Sun 12 March (NZT):
9:04am: NZ v Russia
12:40pm: NZ v Scotland
4:20pm: NZ v Canada

Where to watch:
Sunday: Sky Sport 5 (Sky Sport Pop-up 1/Ch 55) from 5.30am
Monday: Sky Sport 6 (Sky Sport Pop-up 2/Ch 56) from 5.00am

[booboo]

@Stargazer DJ the skipper even though Curry is in?

[Stargazer]

@booboo When I copied it from the ABs website, and pasted it here (see my earlier post), it mentioned both Curry and Forbes as captains. They have corrected it on their website since then. Curry is the captain.

[Stargazer]

Tim Mikkelson has been ruled out of the #Canada7s tournament due to flu. Andrew Knewstubb will replace him in the 12-man squad.

[Stargazer]

Good first win from the AB7s, who have just beaten Russia 40 to 0.

[Stargazer]

Another good win from the AB7s, beating Scotland 33-12, including 4 minutes with 6 against 7 men.

Canada will be a tougher opponent and more discipline needed.

[No Quarter]

Been a fair while since I watched 7s but from what I can see Koroi is our best player by miles.

[Stargazer]

@No-Quarter Yep, awesome talent. Only 18 years old!

[Stargazer]

NZ beat Canada 15 to 14. That's 3 wins out of 3.

The AB 7s will play England in the Cup QF, tomorrow at 7.52am.

[Bones]

You have to be kidding me. Curtis and collier in the same team and both starting. Both already shown how out of their depth they are, several times in 5 minutes.

[Bones]

Just for good measure, collier adds an extra bit of spastic at the end of the first half as Curtis has gone off injured so he has to double down.

[Stargazer]

Damn, AB7s lost 14 -12. If the England player who took Curry out (in the air) was properly penalised with a yellow, that might have made the difference, but overall the England defence was better, so probably their win is deserved.

[Stargazer]

The AB 7s go to the 5th place semi-final. They'll play Australia at 10:46am.

[Stargazer]

Didn't watch the game, but the AB7s beat Australia 21 to 0.

They'll play Argentina for 5th place at 1:07pm.

[Stargazer]

NZ beat Argentina 17-14 and finishes 5th.

Koroi scored the winning try and it was brilliant! What a talent!

[Stargazer]

I always wondered what the fringe AB7s players do to stay match fit, just in case they get a call-up when a regular squad member gets injured. You know they hold camps, also in-between tournaments, but that's not the same as real game time.

The fringe ABs (XVs) play Mitre 10 Cup during the Rugby Championship; fringe Super Rugby players first play for their franchise's Development or U20s team, and then club rugby. But for 7s? Playing XVs doesn't really seem the right preparation.

That's apparently where all those invitational 7s tournaments come in. Mason Emerson, who is one of those fringe AB7s players, posted a photo on his instagram of a jersey he's wearing this weekend while playing for the NZ Borneo Eagles. So I started googling and found an article (link below) with more info. Interesting, this invitational side is basically the NZ Development team (at least for this tournament). I couldn't find a team list, unfortunately. I did notice that some other teams participating in this tournament also include NZ players.

However, following the tournament on FB and via a live stream, they beat the Singapore 7s team 60-0 and another invitational team, Cobra, 57-0. You may only hope they'll still meet tougher opposition; otherwise, how much do they gain from playing these games?

Tournament schedule (Borneo time is 5 hours behind NZT): http://borneoeagles.com/?page_id=119 (have to scroll down)
The NZ Borneo Eagles next games are at 7.20pm & 10.20pm NZT.

Livestream:

Article: http://www.newsabahtimes.com.my/nstweb/fullstory/14296

[Stargazer]

For whoever is interested: the NZ Borneo Eagles lost their 3rd game against Tribe 7s 14-36 and won their 4th game v Sri Lanka 7s 35 to 12. That means that they finish 2nd in their pool and will play the Cup QF tomorrow.

[Stargazer]

Update: The NZ Borneo Eagles have won the Cup Final of the Borneo 7s Tournament, just like last year. In the Final, they beat Tribe 7s 19 to 14.

Earlier today, they won the QF 21-17 against DBKL and the SF 34-0 against Sabah Eagles.

Here's the team photo, so we can see who some of these fringe AB7s are. Several familiar faces, but - as usual - I cannot put names to them, except Jonathan Ruru (holds trophy with ribbon) and Mason Emerson (front row, with bandage below his right knee). Edit: Billy Ropiha is not in this group, but maybe he's injured.