It was a tough weekend for Otago at the national sevens tournament in Rotorua.
The women finished eighth and the men 13th, both proving competitive but facing tough draws. After a win, a draw and a loss in the pool, the women’s team came up against a strong Counties-Manukau outfit in the quarterfinal. Otago performed creditably, holding a 7-0 lead before Counties-Manukau broke the defence just before the break. Portia Woodman used her pace to score early in the second half, giving Counties-Manukau the lead. It went on to run away with a 24-7 win.
"They put a lot of pressure on us around the contact area and breakdown and made it difficult," Otago co-coach Mike Moeahu said.
"In the first half we were clearing it quite well and applying a lot of pressure by using the ball well against them. But full credit to them, they actually were a lot more physical and worked harder at the breakdown and put us under a lot of stress."
Otago was then beaten 33-5 by Bay of Plenty, before being edged 21-19 by Wellington in the playoff for eighth place. Despite hoping to finish higher, Moeahu was happy with how the team played.
"[It was a] pretty tough competition. The girls did really well over the whole weekend and learnt a lot and played really well.
"We were only touch and go with a couple of the other teams. It’s not where we wanted to be, but we’re actually happy that we played really well."
The men’s team wound up winning the shield, although it could have been in the top eight. It lost to both Auckland and Wellington by seven points in the pool, snuffing out its chances of getting to the cup quarterfinals. Against Auckland it had been up 12-0 and dominated the early part of the game, before losing its way in the second half. Auckland scored twice to take a two-point lead and nabbed a third in the final minute. It was a similar story against Wellington, as Otago went down 17-10. Day one was finished with a 29-12 win against Horowhenua-Kapiti, before Otago dropped its bowl quarterfinal to Bay of Plenty 26-17 on day two. It came back to breeze past South Canterbury and beat Southland 28-0 to win the shield.
Coach Kane Jury said the team got better as the weekend went on. A lack of possession in the two key pool games had not helped and while the team hung in there, it needed to do so for 14 minutes.
"We just fell off tackles in the end and as soon as one person went out of the structure we got exposed," he said.
"That’s how dangerous they are. We’ve just got to be mentally tough to stay in the system. That’s what we learned yesterday and then today I think we did a lot better with that."
He hoped to retain the majority of the side for next year and had hopes it would be able to build on what it had learnt this time around.
Counties-Manukau took home the spoils, beating Manawatu 24-17 in the women’s final, before doing the double with a 14-7 win over Waikato in the men’s.