Both the Otago men’s and women’s sevens teams are through to the national finals in Tauranga in two weeks.
The Otago women won two of their three round-robin games at the regional qualifying tournament in Timaru.
The team beat Southland 20-5 and had a narrow 12-10 win against Tasman. Tasman scored late but missed the conversion to level the score. It hit the crossbar.
Otago was competitive with Canterbury in its other round-robin game, losing 31-14. But the tournament final was one-way traffic with Canterbury registering a heavy 38-5 win.
Otago got off the mark in the last moments of the final with a try.
Coach David Latta was happy enough. The team was not able to secure a warm-up game and went into the tournament cold.
Captain Sam Hollows was a standout performer, while Greer Muir made a big impact as well. Rookie Trisha Hopcroft made some nice breaks, Latta said.
"Everyone played their part."Because we haven’t had a lot of time together and no real games, we were pretty much straight into the tournament."
The men won three of their five games to qualify in second place.
Otago started the tournament well with wins against all the Canterburys. It beat Canterbury 7-0 in a tight match but recorded comfortable wins against Mid Canterbury (26-7) and South Canterbury (38-7).
The team produced a lacklustre effort in the final two games, losing 17-5 to Southland and 36-10 to Tasman.
Had Otago beaten Tasman it would have qualified in top spot. Coach Roy Hawker gave his side a pass mark but said there was room for a lot of improvement at the breakdown.
"That is something we are going to have to improve in our game," Hawker said.
"We were winning all our kick-offs but losing the ball at the breakdown, so there is a lesson in that."
Hawker said Taylor Haugh "was absolutely sensational" and stood out as "the best player on display at the tournament".
Kaikorai’s Ben Miller and Harbour duo Logan Allen and and Charles Elton also impressed.