Cayman 7s make great showing in Canada

(CRFU): The Maples National Academy 7s rugby team set of for their developmental tour of Calgary, Victoria and Vancouver in preparation for the World Cup 7s qualifiers in Ottawa in late August. The tour started Friday 6 July with one of three very challenging tournaments playing against the elite Canadian 7s teams. Cayman were drawn first against last year’s winners of the tournament the ‘Dog River Howlers’ a team with a number of prospective Canadian National players. The Cayman team started very well and scored three tries in the first half through excellent team play; Joel Clark, Vanassio Tokotokovenua  and debutant Johann Regnard .

The ‘Howlers’ then started the second half with some very strong play and scored 3 very good tries and were in the lead with only a minute to play, a break and chip ahead resulted in Joel Clark scoring the winning try to leave a shell shocked ‘Howlers’ defeated 26-20 by Cayman.

The next match was played against the ‘Cannibals’ a team made up of resident Fijian’s after a inconsistent first half Cayman returned to their very good structure and form of the first game to beat the Cannibals 26-5 with tries from, Vanassio Tokotokovenua, Dan Bond, Joel Clark and Michael Wilson.

After a very successful two games on Friday Cayman returned for their next game on Saturday morning against the Regina Prairie Fire in the Elite men’s competition. Cayman again produced an excellent team display with the forwards, Dan Bond, Edward Westin, Johann Regnard and JoshClark winning the majority of restarts to provide the ball for the team to score 34 unanswered points winning 34-0. The tries were scored by; Josh Clark, Johann Regnard and four by Joel Clark. The Maples Academy team were unbeaten in 3 games and now in the semi-final of the men’s elite division to play Edmonton Exiles.

Against a large and very physical team the score was tied at 12-12 at the final whistle with tries from; Venasio Tokotokovenua and Joel Clark. In extra time Josh Clark exerted excellent pressure at the kick off resulting in a Cayman Scrum where Garrett Conolly scored a very good individual try to win the game and place Cayman in the final.
In the final, Cayman were against the home team of the Calgary Mavericks who had a number of talented and physical southern hemisphere players. After a slow start and going down to three quick tries Cayman scored just before half time through Venasio Tokotokovenua with the score at 17-7 to Calgary. In the second half Calgary scored straight from the kick off and were now 22-7 ahead.

The Cayman team then put in an excellent final five minutes scoring a great individual try from half way by Keswick Wright followed by a hard earned forward try through Johann Regnard. In the final seconds Joel Clark was bundled into touch short of the Calgary line resulting in a final score of 22-17 to Calgary.

Cayman played every team in the ‘Top’ Elite division winning four games and only losing in the final by 5 points. It was an excellent squad performance and a great learning experience for the Maples 7s academy in this developmental tour. Cayman now move on to Victoria where they will train with the Canadian men’s 7s team and also benefit from the further support of Morgan Williams in the coaching team in preparation for two very challenging international tournaments in Victoria and Vancouver.