Atlantis a
Surprise Success at Taupiri (NZ) Sevens
Emil
Signes
March 1, 1990
On
February 25,
1990, Atlantis became the first American team to participate in a major
New Zealand club sevens tournament. Furthermore, they were a
pleasant surprise to their New Zealand hosts, knocking off 3 first
division sides on their way to a semi-final berth in what is
acknowledged to be New Zealand's best and toughest club 7s' tournament.
Invitation
I had corresponded with
former All-Black coach Bryce Rope about New Zealand's approach to
sevens, and he had spoken briefly with our team during the 1989 Hong
Kong Sevens. After Hong Kong,realizing that our top sevens'
players needed to gain more experience dealing with pressure, I wrote
to Bryce asking whether it would be possible to have a side invited to
a top New Zealand 7s tournament.
In December 1989, Ken
Wilkinson of Taupiri called with the formal invitation.
Atlantis
An opportunity like this
was too good to pass up. It was a perfect occasion to convene the
invitational sevens' side Atlantis that I had founded in 1986.
Atlantis' purpose is to further the development of sevens within the US
by bringing together players of skill and experience levels appropriate
for the specific event.
Obviously this
specific event would require all top notch players.
Rob Skalka
and Mike Brodie
Initial inquiries
indicated that virtually all top-notch US sevens players would be
interested in this activity, but that virtually none could afford to
pay the expenses involved.
Continental Airlines,
one of the tournament sponsors, was able to provide a moderate
discount, and members of the Taupiri RFC offered to host us during our
stay in the Waikato.
Still, projected costs
were too high for us to accept the invitation without further help.
Enter Rob Skalka and
Mike Brodie, fund raisers supreme. Through various contacts,
sponsors, etc., ferreted out by Rob and Mike, we were able eventually
to cover the majority of the airfare as well as provide kit for all
tour members.
Both men joined the
tour and provided assistance in many areas: Mike helped out in various
organizational areas, and Rob provided many insightful comments in
strategic and tactical areas regarding our performance on the field.
Among sponsors
contacted locally were Schweppes, Guiness, Matt Godek and New York
City's Red Lion Pub, all of whom provided assistance to our efforts.
The Atlantis Squad
The following
nine members comprised the Atlantis squad that competed in the 1990
Taupiri Sevens:
Will Brewington Maryland Old
Boys
Chris
O'Brien
Old Blues (CA)
Chris
Petrakes
Maryland Old Boys
Dave Poquette
Grand Rapids (MI)
Mike
Siano
Philadelphia/Whitemarsh
Steve
Siano
Philadelphia/Whitemarsh
Barry Tofaeono Los Angeles
Charlie Wilkinson Northern Virginia
Jimmy Wilkinson Northern Virginia
Kevin Higgins was the
tenth member of the squad until the last moment, but sustained a minor
injury and chose to recover to be fit for the Eagles tour of Ireland.
The final member of
the tour party was Will Brewington's wife Brenda.
Arrival
Members of the
tour party joined up in Honolulu late on the evening of Monday,
February 19; three -- Mike Siano, Chris O'Brien, and Barry Tofaeono
(formerly Williams) -- arrived directly from the Eagle 15s' camp in San
Diego.
We arrived in Auckland
slightly before 9 AM on Wednesday, February 21, and jumped right into
our first training session upon our 11:30 arrival in Taupiri. The
press was there, and we got a nice write up in the Waikato Times on the
following day; a sure sign that we were in a part of the world where
rugby was appreciated.
The rest of the day
was spent trying to stay awake, to get us back in synch with the clock
in our new environment.
Social
Activities
Although we
trained every day, life was not all rugby, as we got to many activities
during the week that followed. Among those attended by at least
some members of the group were:
o A day at the races, at the Te Awamutu Racecourse (the 75th
Jubilee meeting of the Waipa Racing Club). Most of us came
away a few dollars poorer, but Rob emerged a big winner.
o
A reception held by the mayor of Hamilton, Margaret Evans,
for the entire tour party. Mayor Evans described her
community, its challenges and accomplishments, and made us
realize that there is more to New Zealand than rugby.
o
A boat trip down the Waikato River. The lunch-time cruise
was sponsored by New Zealand breweries and afforded a
relaxing view of a portion of New Zealand's longest river.
o
A visit to the beach at Raglan. The Tasman Sea coast is
well known for its black sand beaches, and the water was a
beautiful Atlantis green.
o
A side trip to Rotorua, with its world famous geysers and
healing waters. The highlight of the trip, for Chris
Petrakes and Rob Skalka, was finding a MOB jersey on display
at
the local rugby museum.
o
Various trips to Hamilton, including Victoria's Pub, a
local establishment managed by Graham Osbourne, a local rugby
person who treated us very well during our visit (the main
item on the agenda of many at Victoria's was watching the New
Zealand vs. India cricket test match) (ho-hum).
Thursday Night
Scrimmage
Thursday night we were
presented with our first test on the field. The original schedule
called for us to face a tough Hamilton Marist side first, followed by a
Taupiri "2nd/3rds combined" side.
We fielded our top
combinations vs. Hamilton Marist and defeated them 3 tries to 1.
Following this match we fielded two less likely combinations made up of
our squad members, but were defeated by Taupiri, 4 tries to 1.
I was upset by this
result, and forewent our original plan to go over "situations" with the
Marist team and opted for a full 14-minute game, instead, a game we won
quite handily.
The Taupiri result
shook us up and made us realize that we'd have to concentrate more on
Sunday and that all sloppy play would be punished by opponents' tries.
We later learned that
the Taupiri team we had faced was the Taupiri first choice, and that
relieved our anxiety somewhat.
Chris Petrakes
Injured
During our last
workout on Saturday morning, we suffered a crippling blow, as Chris
Petrakes severely twisted an ankle during a game of touch. The
doctor he visited told him that if he treated it properly he would
probably be available by the time the Hong Kong Sevens rolled around.
Needless to say, we
were very upset. Furthermore, although we had practiced with Will
Brewington as our reserve scrum half, now that we actually had to deal
with the situation, captain Jimmy Wilkinson and I realized that we
didn't want to replace Will at hooker. We decided to use Steve
Siano as the scrum half on Sunday.
The Tournament
The Taupiri
Sevens tournament itself is described in another article in this issue
of Rugby. Briefly, it consists of 24 teams, and follows the
popular "Hong Kong" format -- 8 brackets of 3 teams each.
Our bracket consisted
of Auckland Suburbs, a first division Auckland side, and the Tokoroa
Pirates, another top side from the southern Waikato. Our hosts seemed
to feel that if we could somehow manage to squeak by Suburbs, we'd make
it into the championship quarter-finals.
Suburbs leading
player, Brett Iti, is the Auckland scrum half, and everyone with whom
we spoke agreed that he would run around the base of the scrum.
We realized that we'd have to stop him immediately and assigned that
job to Will Brewington.
The Pirates were a
largely Maori side that we could expect to play a physical style game
-- a match up that we looked forward to.
Auckland Suburbs
Half an hour
before kickoff, Chris Petrakes ignored all medical advice and had his
ankle taped. Although he was not feeling comfortable, we decided
to play him anyway.
On the first scrum of
the game Suburbs' halfback Brett Iti ran around the base of the scrum,
as predicted. Will Brewington got out quickly from his hooker
position and tackled Iti, but he allowed the strong Iti to keep his
feet and move the ball away from pressure to the outside where a failed
Barry Tofaeono interception attempt ended up as a Suburbs try and a 4-0
deficit.
After some good ball
movement, Barry Tofaeono got the ball and sidestepped as only he can,
to the oohs and aahs of the crowd, and scored a try to tie the
game. Chris O'Brien made the drop conversion (tournament rules),
and put us ahead, 6-4.
Later in the half,
after Charlie Wilkinson had pulled out some typical magic out of his
sevens' hat and broken the Suburbs' line, a Will Brewington football
pass to Chris O'Brien resulted in a try and a 12-4 lead.
In the second half,
Suburbs narrowed the lead to 12-10 as a break by their center resulted
in a try. Another long Suburbs break nearly resulted in an
Atlantis defeat, but Chris O'Brien made a tremendous tackle less than 5
yards from the goal line, thwarting the attempt and saving the
game. Another Barry Tofaeono step resulted in our last try and a
16-10 victory.
Our
team:
1.
Poquette
2.
Brewington
3.
J.Wilkinson
4. Petrakes
5. C. Wilkinson
6. O'Brien
7. Tofeano
Tokoroa Pirates
This was just
about a flawless game, in which our ball handling and support work were
firing on all cylinders. Our display was so impressive that
Auckland selector Morris Trapp remarked that our ball skills, and the
way we were creating the gaps, were the best he'd ever seen, on any
team, anywhere. Great praise indeed.
The first try was
scored by Jim Wilkinson after good support from a tackle situation, and
was followed by a Mike Siano try after good ball handling led to a gap
which he breached. Chris Petrakes, proving the doctor wrong,
followed with a hat trick of tries, and Barry Tofaeono added the sixth
with a great individual move.
The "all conversions
must be drop kicks" hurt us in this game; with Chris O'Brien out, we
went to Barry, who made only one kick of six.
Our
team:
1.
M.Siano
2.
Brewington
3.
J.Wilkinson
4. Petrakes
5. C. Wilkinson
6. S. Siano
7. Tofaeono
Quarterfinals:
Waitete
Our pool victory
meant that we advanced to the Cup quarterfinals. Our opponent, Waitete,
was the King Country 1989 league champion (15s).
Atlantis,
however, went into a Jekyll and Hyde mode as our excellent game
against the Pirates was followed by an abysmal performance.
The score was tied 6-6
(O'Brien try) with less than 15 seconds left, and under the tournament
rules, we would have lost, as Waitete had scored first.
Waitete was awarded a
penalty at our 5 meter line, and instead of kicking it, chose to run
it, were tackled, and a Steve Siano clearing kick was run down by Dave
Poquette, who fought off two tacklers and fed the ball to Will
Brewington, who ran it in about 75 yards for the winning try.
Our team:
1.
M.Siano *
2.
Brewington
3.
J.Wilkinson
4. S. Siano
5. C. Wilkinson
6. O'Brien
7. Tofeano
*
replaced by Poquette
Semifinals:
Ponsonby
Having surprised most of
the Kiwi fans (and ourselves) by our success, we found ourselves in the
company of "the big boys." The top two teams in the tournament were
definitely figured to be Auckland Marist and Ponsonby.
With the two newest
All-Black wingers (Craig Innes and Vi-anga Tuigamala), Ponsonby ran
three quick tries down our throat before we regrouped.
In the second half we
played Ponsonby even and got the score down to 14-6, and threatened
again. Had we scored and made it a 14-12 game, we would
have positioned ourselves for a tremendous upset. Ponsonby,
however, took advantage of an offensive mistake on our part, and their
score made the final 20-6.
Chris O'Brien scored
our only try.
Our team:
1.
Poquette
2.
Brewington
3.
J.Wilkinson
4. Petrakes
5. C. Wilkinson
6. O'Brien
7. Tofaeono
Taupiri
The other
semi-final featured Auckland Marist and Taupiri; our hosts who had
played so well on Thursday night repeated their performance when it
counted and got much further than they expected. In this game,
however, the inevitable finally happened and Auckland Marist came off
with a 30-0 victory.
The Championship
Finals
The game started
out as if Ponsonby were going to thrash Marist by 30 or 40 points, as
they led 16-0 five minutes into the first half.
Zin Zan Brooke,
however, took over virtually every phase of the game at that point,
beginning with a long kick to winger Terry Wright that Ponsonby didn't
even bother to chase.
In the end, Marist's
composure, and Ponsonby's lack of it, resulted in a 28-16 Marist
victory.
The game was very
exciting to watch and was of Hong Kong championship caliber.
Great stuff!
Comments
Atlantis players
basked in the congratulations of the fans and opposing players as the
festivities wound to a close. Nevertheless, as befits those who
strive for nothing less than perfection, there was some speculation as
to how we might have been able to pull off a miracle finish vs.
Ponsonby.
The universal feeling
in the Atlantis camp, after all was said and done, was one of real
accomplishment.
Atlantis has been
invited back in 1991, and will probably accept: the Taupiri Sevens is a
great venue for development of top notch sevens' players, of decision
makers under pressure.