Eels win first week of club sevens

The Eels emerged the stand-out winners of the club sevens opening shakedown on Saturday.

In the first week of the CITC Rarotonga Club Sevens competition played at Avatiu Field, the Eels triumphed over the Dragons by 24-7 in the finals play-off.

With the Eels leading at the halftime break by 12-nil, the Dragons stormed bad into contention with a nice chip and chase try to the Dragons ‘danger man’ Sailosi Niagi – brilliantly converted from the sideline by Pene Trego.

But alas that was about as good as it got for the Dragons as the more experienced (and fitter) Eels team were able to lay on two more tries to their playmaker halfback Ben Maaka and busy centre Bruce Goldsworthy – both players national sevens reps.

The Dragons fought valiantly but probably lacked an extra set of ‘wheels’ to finish off their line-breaks.

With all teams playing three matches each weekend, most teams improved after each game with some actually looking better in game three – after they had brushed off most of the 15-a-side cobwebs!

The ‘X-men’(leading point scorers per team) are now starting to reveal themselves amongst the teams: 19-year-old Cowboys flyer Sema Robati leads the try-scoring stakes with 4 tries last weekend and the Panthers’ speedster Conrad Piri scoring 21 points in one match (3x converted tries).

Just remember that there are major cash prizes on offer (to be distributed amongst all teams) so the teams will have to consistently perform for all fourweeks of competition to win the major prizes as well as individual awards for the Player of the Tournament, Top Try Scorer and Top Point Scorer.

We now look forward to week 2 of the CITC Rarotonga Club Sevens matches to be played this Saturday at the Takuvaine Happy Valley field starting at 2pm – draw to be announced later this week.

Placings after week one: 1 Eels, 2 Dragons, 3 Panthers, 4 Reds, 5 Cowboys, 6 Bulls.