CI tackles Darwin 7s

The Cooks 7s team will participate in the 2010 Oceania 7s Tournament in Darwin, Australia on Friday and Saturday (today and tomorrow local time).

The tournament will see eight participating teams but only six looking to qualify for the 2011 IRB 7s tournaments in Wellington, Hong Kong and Adelaide. Australia and Samoa have already qualified for the 2011 IRB 7s circuit.

The Cooks is seeded sixth out of the eight participating teams. Samoa is the number one seed followed by Australia, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Niue and the Cook Islands. Vanuatu and Tahiti are seeded seventh and eighth respectively.

The pools for the Darwin tournament are as follows: Pool A: Samoa, PNG, Niue, Tahiti; Pool B: Australia, Tonga, Cook Islands, and Vanuatu.

On day one the Cooks 7s team will play three pool matches against Vanuatu, Tonga and Australia. At the conclusion of round one, teams will be ranked within their respective pool based on the total number of competition points accumulated.

Teams will progress to round two based on where they finished in their respective pools, and play their next match according to the tournament schedule.

The Cook Islands 7s squad who are hoping to qualify is as follows: Ashley Drake, Dexter Mahroney, Kairan Marsh, Teina Savage, Richard Connell, Beau Mokotupu, Adam Vardey (capt), Tepou Taana, Jerome Manukete, Francis Takiari, Messine Manapori, and Nathan Robinson.

Messages of support for the team can be sent to: jbwichmanci@hotmail.com