Tentative comeback for Central Region 7s tournament on Saturday

After a four-year hiatus, the Central Region 7s tournament returns this Saturday at Massey University at Palmerston North, albeit in an abbreviated format from last time.

For several years this tournament was held at Playford Park, Levin, and constituted qualification for the National Provincial 7s tournament formerly in Queenstown and most recently at Mt Maunganui. A combination of Covid, the NZRU dropping the national tournament that this was a qualifier for and 2019 always being the last year that Horowhenua-Kapiti hosted the Central 7s has meant it has taken this long to re-start.

Saturday’s tournament is down on numbers – no Wellington, Horowhenua-Kapiti, East Coast and Poverty Bay teams from the Hurricanes region, and no Taranaki who were at the last tournament at Levin – and it is understood by this website that it will be run as an unofficial tournament with the men’s and women’s trophies not officially on the line.

There will be just four men’s and four women’s teams at Massey on Saturday, these being:

Men’s:

Hawke’s Bay
Manawatu
Whanganui
Wairarapa-Bush

Women’s

Hawke’s Bay
Manawatu
Whanganui
Wairarapa-Bush

Manawatu are the defending women’s champions from 2019 and they won a tournament in Hawke’s Bay last week. Wellington won the 2019 men’s tournament, so a new winner will be found on Saturday.

It’s a short, sharp tournament being run on Saturday on fields 1 and 2 at Massey University (immediately behind the ‘Courts’ hostels at the back of the campus).

Play gets underway at 10.20am on both fields with a three-round pool section, a semi-final and then a final in each division, leading up to 3 v 4 matches and the Women’s final at 2.20pm and Men’s at 2.40pm.

There is also the Northern Region 7s tournament on Saturday in Whangarei.