2 wins for 3rd overall

in Asia Pacific Sevens

The first ever Cook Islands women’s rugby team will return home this week with the Plate from their debut event at the Asia Pacific Women’s Sevens tournament in Borneo.

The Cooks beat crowd favourite Singapore in the plate play off 10-5 to win the plate and place third overall at the Borneo tournament.

But things looked grim on day one of the tournament for the Cook Islands squad who were hammered 29-0 by competition favourites Khazakstan and 25-0 by their Tongan sisters.

But the local girls regrouped and greeted day two of the tournament invigorated – and it showed on the field.

The Cooks faced Pacific sisters Samoa and trailed the side for most of the game until the team’s speedster Patricia Taea stepped up to score two tries and snatch the win for the Cooks.

Exhausted after the hard fought win, the Cooks faced Khazakstan again and although they dominated the possession – they couldn’t turn it into points with Khazakstan running away with the win 24-0.

The Cooks then faced crowd favourites Singapore who had early on edged out Samoa 7-5 in pool play.

The game was played in what has been described by team manager John Wichman as atrocious rainy conditions.

He reports that the rain was so heavy that calls for interchange were made verbally as sheets of paper didn’t stand a chance in the rain.

The Cooks constantly broke the opposition line but lacked in their cover defence.

But the Cooks first try came from a ruck ball taken by Tai Wichman who ran 22 metres and after dealing with the sweeper – scored between the posts to give the Cooks the early 5-0 lead.

Singapore responded with a try before half time to level the scores at 5-all.

The scores remained and the game went into extra time.

Two minutes into extra time the Cooks put into a scrum.

Scrum half Margaret Nena attacked the blind and fed back the ball to Elle Walton who fought off defenders to offload the ball to team speedster Patricia Taea.

Taea beat two defenders before gapping it 30 metres to the try line to score the Cooks’ winning try.

Samoa won the bowl after beating Tonga 12-5 and PNG and Khazakstan were to square off last night for the Bowl finals.

The local side of Julieanne Westrupp (captain), Edith Nicholas (vice captain), Taromi Urirau, Akaiti Purea, Apii Nicholls, Mama Henry, Patricia Taea, Tai Wichman, Elle Walton, Margaret Nena, Mary Adams, Marae Mataroa, Nooroa Maui (coach), John Wichman (manager), LeeVan Santos (physio) and Keith Roberts (trainer) exceeded their expectations and will return home this week with the fruit of their success – the plate from their first ever major international tournament.