Northland's Keepa Wiki (right) looks to offload the ball to No 12 Nikau Graham in their game against Bay of Plenty. Photo / TECT National Sevens
Northland's Keepa Wiki (right) looks to offload the ball to No 12 Nikau Graham in their game against Bay of Plenty. Photo / TECT National Sevens
Finishing 14th out of 16 teams at a national tournament doesn't sound good, but Northland rugby hopes to turn this into a top four finish in three years.
The Northland sevens team lost in the shield final against Manawatu at the TECT national sevens tournament in Tauranga last weekend. Theyhad heavy losses to eventual-winners Tasman and cup semifinalists Wellington in pool play before beating South Canterbury to contend for the bowl.
Northland were beaten 0-39 by Bay of Plenty before advancing into the shield final after going past Wairarapa Bush, 35-12.
"Results-wise, it wasn't that good but we were pleased with how everyone played," Northland Rugby sevens campaign manager Ben Wiki said.
"We've got a very young group of players so we were going to the tournament to get experience."
Northland's Matt Tutagaloa (13) shoves off a Bay of Plenty defender in their game on Sunday. Photo / TECT National Sevens
Wiki said some of the bigger losing margins didn't tell the full story like their 40-7 loss against Tasman.
"It took them six minutes and 23 seconds to score a try against us and we held possession for most of that half so that tells us we are just not converting our opportunities.
"A lot of the errors we made were rookie errors like turning the ball over, getting isolated, mistakes that players at that level don't make but we were making them because of our inexperience."
Wiki said Kaitaia's Darryl Smith was one of the standouts of the tournament. The 26-year-old led well as the captain for a number of the games and was rarely isolated with the ball, making good decisions on and off the ball, he said.
Northland finished in the same position in last year's tournament. Seven players of the Northland side were new to the tournament with the average age of this year's team 19 compared with the average of other teams at about 23.
Wiki said if Northland Rugby could provide players with a pathway to a professional sevens regime, the province could perform much better on the national stage.
"In two to three years, I would like to see us in the top eight of the national sevens, if not the top four but that comes down to putting in a programme that builds on the talent in the province."
From left: Matt Tutagaloa, Potolaka Maake and Walter Pomare go through their training regime. Photo / TECT National Sevens
Wiki said losing players to other provinces was a big hurdle for Northland if they were to grow their sevens programme. Tasman's player of the tournament, Jesse Pitman, was originally from Onerahi, Whangarei before moving away to explore his options.
He said the transition from the normal 15s format to sevens was a hard one to make particularly if the group hadn't been training together for long.
"Ultimately, it takes a special athlete to play both [15s and 7s] and we've got one in Scott Gregory. Other teams stay together all year and they've got specific sevens programmes where the nationals is the target.
"For our boys, they are coming out of under-19s or wherever and then to fit into sevens in about two to three months is pretty hard."
Wiki said Northland's sevens programme was becoming more of a genuine pathway for sevens players which gave them that exposure to a high-performance environment without the commitment of seven to eight months of preparation.
The national tournament was the last event for the 2018 season and Northland's sevens programme will undergo a review process to prepare for regional tournaments in September next year.
