Samoa presented with the USA Sevens Trophy for 2010
Samoa made it 2 in 2 weeks as they defeated Samurai in the final of the Safaricom Sevens tournament in Kenya.
Just 3 weeks out from the Australian Sevens on the Gold Coast, Samoa are really starting to hit their straps.
They are drawn in group C alongside France, Argentina and Papua New Guinea.
New Zealand eased past South Africa to win the Australian leg of the IRB World Sevens Series.
They take 24 championship points as a result and will have a 13 point advantage over close rivals England going into the second to last tournament in London on the weekend of 22-23 May.
England got 16 points as losing semi-finalists and there are 24 points on offer in London and the same again in Edinburgh.
Ben Gollings appeared to have sustained an eye injury in the quarter finals in Adelaide and did not play in the semi-final where England looked a little flat.
I’m sure he will be back for the London Sevens in late May and with the home support at Twickenham, England will be formidable.
Unfortunately Tonga did not fire when they played Samoa at the New Zealand Sevens in February. They had beaten Kenya earlier but failed to score a try against Samoa, losing 17-0.
But this was not the case when the 2 pacific islands teams met again in pool play in Hong Kong.
This was exactly the hard-hitting, hard-running closely fought matchup we expected.
Tonga scored first and then got another to lead 12-0 in the first half.
Some great work by Tom Iosefo at both ends of the field gave Samoa the lead early in the second half.
But Tonga were not done yet. Pele scored in the corner to reduce the lead by 2.
Fautau Otto then sealed it for Samoa from a turnover after a botched Tongan attack.
Final score Samoa 24-17 Tonga.
Samoa will be a batter team for having had a tough workout.
The Bay of Plenty Provincial Tournament is the unofficial North Island Sevens Event played in the beach resort of Mount Maunganui early in the new year. It is positioned very well on the sevens calendar, one week before the Nationals in Queenstown in the height of the New Zealand summer.
A solid crowd turned out in the heat to watch the local team win for the second time in a row.
This may have been a stronger competition than last year as the event featured all of the North Islands’ NPC first division unions as well as Horowhenua Kapiti (semi-finalists at the Singapore 7s) and Canterbury.
Five out of the six new internationals from the victorious New Zealand team in South Africa were there
Bryce Heem - Auckland & New Zealand Sevens
Declan O'Donnell, Waikato and New Zealand Sevens
Jack McPhee, Northland & New Zealand Sevens
Recent Internationals included Leka Tupuola (Wellington), Zar Lawrence (Northland) and Edwin Cocker (Auckland). Veteran ex-international Craig DeGoldi was playing for Canterbury.
Veteran Craig De Goldi
Key Australian play-maker Brackin Karauria-Henry is ineligible to play for Australia at the Commonwealth Games because he cannot complete residency formalities in time to be fast-tracked through authorities.
2008-09 star Richard Kingi has suffered the same fate.
This us a serious blow for Michael O’Connor as Australia prepare for the Games without one of their key players from this season.
Digby Ioane was already ruled out with injury.
Australia did extremely well to win the London leg of this year’s IRB World Sevens Series where Karauria-Henry featured prominently but Australia will be without him in their next big outing.
It is a shame that Australian rugby authorities had not checked on these things earlier.