American Ambassador’s Sevens finale this Saturday

The 2025 rugby season in Wellington goes out with a bang this Saturday with the second and concluding leg of the American Ambassador’s Sevens series.

All sporting roads in the Wellington region head to Trentham Memorial Park for the tournament that kicks off at 9.00am and runs until late afternoon, with the addition of finals at the end of the day by popular request.

The men’s and women’s finals are pencilled in for 4.20pm on TMP fields 2 and 3 where all the action will take place throughout the day.

The winners of the finals will be awarded the American Ambassador’s Trophy (men’s) and Eleanor Roosevelt Cup (women’s).

This past Saturday’s opening leg at Mary Crowther Park has set things up nicely for this week, and, as alluded to previously, the addition of two new teams, the Fijian Flyers and host club the Upper Hutt Rams, could upset the apple cart on the men’s side of the draw.

As it stands after leg one, the men’s points are:

Ories 20; HOBM 18; MSP 16; Pare-Plim 14; Tawa 12; Wellington 10; Petone 8; Avalon 6; Wainuiomata 4; Norths 3; OBU 2; Stokes Valley 1

Points on offer at each tournament are 20 (first), 18 (second), 16 (third), 14 (fourth), 12 (fifth), 10 (sixth), 8 (seventh), 6 (eighth), 4 (ninth), 3 (10^th), 2 (11^th), 1 (12^th).

The format of the tournament sees a continuation of last week’s game, so that teams will play the sides they didn’t play on Saturday. Although with a couple of different teams/replacements from last week it won’t work out quite that way.

Nevertheless, attention will be on Hutt Old Boys Marist, who are sitting second and unbeaten after the opening leg, but didn’t play Ories, MSP or Paremata-Plimmerton. So this year’s men’s 15s champions will either sink or swim.

Two-time defending champions and the hosts of next February’s National club championships Paremata-Plimmerton might need to win all their games to have a chance of lifting the spoils. The injection of previously injured playmaker Esi Komaisavai for the afternoon session certainly boosted them.

The Upper Hutt Rams are frequent sevens contenders and recent former champions, but they weren’t at last week’s tournament for reasons only they know, but if they arrive with their leading players (one or two of whom played for other clubs last weekend) then they will be hard to beat.

Similarly, the Wellington Fijian Flyers are a seasoned sevens outfit, having competed in recent tournaments at Palmerston North and Feilding (finishing third) and they will be ready to go from the opening whistle of their first game.

The Rams and the Flyers come in for the Stokes Valley Rhinos and for Wainuiomata this week.

In the women’s section, Manawatu’s 7UP team was the only unbeaten side at Wainuiomata, but they are not appearing at this weekend’s tournament.

The number of women’s teams stays at six though, with the addition of the Avalon She-Wolves.

The Women’s points table after the first leg is: 7UP 20; Petone 18; Norths 16; OBU 14; Wainuiomata 12; Wellington 10.

Petone are the two-time defending champions. They had some well-known players last week such as NZ contracted player Justine McGregor and Rangimarie Sturmey, while a couple of their other big players were missing. Similarly, Norths had a few Ories players in their ranks such as Aysesh Leti-L’iga.

There could also be a number of personnel changes this week in the men’s competition, with a feature of last week being a number of ‘guest’ players in the various teams. Plus, with in-game injuries, there were some fill-ins throughout the day. At least one prominent payer played for three teams last week, which was noted by others.

Like last week, the tournament is expected to be well organised and run by the WRFU and by the WRRA officials.

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Online Draw: https://xplorer.rugby/american-ambassador-7s

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American Ambassador’s Trophy – background:

The original (recently replaced by a new one) American Ambassador’s Trophy was presented in 1967 by John F Henning who was US Ambassador to New Zealand in the 1960s. From 1967 until 1998 this tournament was held at Trentham Memorial Park on a Sunday in February as a precursor to the Regional Sevens held in Feilding in mid-March, followed by the Sevens Nationals a week or two later.

Tony Meachen took over as Wellington Sevens Coach in 1998 with John Willis as Manager at a time when Wellington had slipped to the “B” division at the Nationals. In 1999 Meachen and Willis drove the formation of The Local Point Series (named after the chain of taverns/cafes/sports bars), played over three rounds and with points awarded in each round.

The Ambassador’s Trophy was still the premier trophy and won by the winner of the either the first or last round – meaning you could win the Local Point Series but not necessarily the Ambassador’s Trophy. The final of the Ambassador’s Trophy was played as a curtain raiser to a NPC match at Wellington Stadium for a number of years.

American Ambassador’s Sevens series winners since 2016:

• 2016: Upper Hutt Rams (men’s) and St Mary’s College (women’s)
• 2017: Upper Hutt Rams (men’s) and Marist St Pat’s (women’s)
• 2018: Northern United (men’s) and Northern United (women’s)
• 2019: Hutt Old Boys Marist (men’s) and Old Boys University (women’s)
• 2020: Northern United (men’s), Oriental-Rongotai (women’s)
• 2021: No tournament played.
• 2022: Ories and Upper Hutt Rams shared (men’s) and Marist St Pat’s (women)
• 2023: Paramata-Plimmerton (men’s) and Petone (women’s)
• 2024: Paremata-Plimmerton (men’s) and Petone (women’s)

Random Recap

Looking at some of the action from the 2018 club sevens tournament at Onepoto Park: