Quality field for city sevens

The home side will have extra motivation to perform well in the inaugural Te Rapa Rugby Club Sevens tournament tomorrow.

Eighteen teams will be playing for the Ryan Davies Memorial Trophy, named after the Te Rapa manager's son, who died three weeks ago.

In their quest to lift the trophy, Te Rapa will be up against a quality field of teams from Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Counties-Manukau, Auckland and North Harbour.

With an original aim of getting 24 sides, Te Rapa rugby co-ordinator Gary Crossman was happy with the quality of the 18 that were finalised for the first running of the event.

"We're happy with that, there's a lot that had already committed elsewhere to things, that weren't aware of our tournament," Crossman said. "It's a good spread of teams.

"All of the sides that are down here, I can honestly say that any one of them, with perhaps the exception of our own second team – it would be somewhat of a miracle if they pulled it off, but they're still a very capable side – the rest of them certainly have got class written all over them."

The club is looking to make the tournament an annual fixture on the last Saturday each November.

"We wanted to start something here that fitted into the calendar."

"There's a number of clubs and a number of players as well who are looking at pushing through with a bit more sport time until Christmas and sevens lends itself to that."

While some teams were still finalising their lineups, Crossman was happy with the standard of players that would be on show, and was looking forward to seeing some Air New Zealand Cup players take part.

Crossman identified Pakuranga as a team to watch and said he was impressed by the effort they had made in recruiting and the direction in which their club was heading, with former Auckland coach Wayne Pivac involved in a coaching capacity.

The Te Rapa side includes Air New Zealand Cup players David Bason, and Alesana Muliaina

"We're hopeful that people will just come along and realise the opportunity to see all the good players that are normally in the Waikato jersey, turning out for their respective club teams, and being able to watch them for nothing," Crossman said.

The action gets under way at Te Rapa Rugby Club's St Andrews Park at 11am, with 32 pool games, before playoffs.

The cup final is scheduled for 5.20pm. Admission is free.

Teams:

Pool A: Te Rapa 1, Pakuranga United, Hinuera, Otorohanga.

Pool B: Hamilton Marist, North Shore, Te Awamutu, Melville, Te Kauwhata.

Pool C: Hamilton Old Boys, Auckland University, Morrinsville Sports, Karaka.

Pool D: College Rifles, Fraser-Tech, Massey, Mount Maunganui, Te Rapa 2.