Rotorua Boys' High School Red sevens player Junta Hamano attempts to evade a Tauranga Boys' College tackler during an invitational sevens tournament. Photo / Ben Fraser
Rotorua Boys' High School Red sevens player Junta Hamano attempts to evade a Tauranga Boys' College tackler during an invitational sevens tournament. Photo / Ben Fraser
Local secondary school sevens players have gained valuable game time ahead of the Condor National Sevens tournament.
Rotorua Boys' High School hosted Wesley College, Tauranga Boys' College, Te Puke High School and Western Heights High School on Saturday during their second annual Hunting and Fishing Invitational 7s Tournament.
Organiser KevinMacDonald, head of physical education at Rotorua Boys' and assistant coach of their sevens team, said they first held the tournament last year to better prepare the players for nationals.
"The tournament is built on the fact there is no tournament between our Baywide competition and Condors, so it's all about preparation and working on different parts of the game.
"The comments we got from coaches were they were pretty happy with it and they got what they wanted out of it, so it was pretty good," MacDonald said.
He said the challenge for sevens coaches was getting players who have been playing 15-a-side all winter to change the way they played.
"The hardest thing is getting that 15 mentality out of the players when it's such a quick turnaround. Our boys had two or three weeks off then it was straight into it, but that's rugby these days, you start in February and finish in December."
Rotorua Boys' High School Red sevens player Zach Ririnui makes a run against Tauranga Boys' College. Photo / Ben Fraser
"We didn't worry about results, it was all about getting game time, but Tauranga Boys' College were unbeaten and they were our only loss. I think Wesley were third and Western Heights fourth.
"It was good that we had good weather, it was quite wet last year, so the skill level was quite high, especially so close to Condors it's good to see that. All the teams, you could see them getting their structure and playing better throughout.
"Our goal every year at Condors is to make top four. Then we reassess, we're confident we can win it with the team we've got, we're progressing well," he said.
