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Fereti Soloa and the HOBM Eagles celebrate their 2025 American Ambassador’s win.
- By Steven White
- Photos by Andy McArthur and Mike & Caroline Lewis
The 2025 Jubilee Cup champions are also the Wellington club rugby sevens champions.
The Hutt Old Boys Marist Eagles played through the two-week American Ambassador’s tournament unbeaten to win this year’s men’s title.
The HOBM were presented with the…Eleanor Roosevelt Cup after their swashbuckling 35-28 win over Oriental-Rongotai in the Cup final at Trentham Memorial Park late this afternoon.
Two-time defending champions Paremata-Plimmerton, who finished third, left the men’s trophy in their clubrooms so the presentation was made with the women’s trophy instead.
Approximately 30 minutes later that was then presented to this year’s women’s champions Northern United who defeated the two-time defending champions the Petone Ponies in the women’s final.
Men’s winners the Eagles had the benefit of a kind draw, and they didn’t even take the field until 1.00pm this afternoon after their first two opponents Avalon and Northern United defaulted.
Norths pulled out of the tournament this morning as many of their players accepted employment opportunities working on Transmission Gully today.
Emerging from their chairperson’s backyard adjacent to Trentham Memorial Park, the Eagles swept to a 46-0 win over Marist St Pat’s and then to a 40-20 victory over Old Boys University before taking the field against Ories in the final.
Fifteens fullback Dominic Ernst ran on to a lovely offload to open the scoring in the final, but Ories immediately hit back with their first try to Salesa Seumanufagai. It was then back-to-back tries that saw HOBM skip out to a handy lead. Daniel Tafili then scored for Ories just before halftime to make it 19-14.
The Eagles were almost in early in the second spell, but for a forward pass. Ories then ran it 95 metres to score to make it three tries apiece.
For the second time in the decider, HOBM went back-to-back, with Norths scoring again at the end but they ran out of time and the Eagles were ahead 35-28.
This was HOBM’s first Wellington club sevens win since 2019.
Ories had also been unbeaten in all their matches up to the final, today beating Petone 39-5, the Wellington Flyers 45-0 and edging Tawa 15-12 in one of the closer games played today.
Black smoke then broke out on the eastern horizon of the park, but it was Paremaata-Plimmerton who were on fire as they raced to a 29-5 win over Tawa in the third-fourth playoff game. Early tries to Esi Komaisavai (2) and Louis Northcott (1) sealed this one early.
Other playoff matches saw the Wellington Axemen beat Marist St Pat’s for 5 v 6 and Petone and Old Boys University meet for 7 v 8.
Today’s host club and former champions the Upper Hutt Rams beat Old Boys University 17-5 in their first game today and then beat Petone 36-0 but thereafter lost to Paremata-Plimmerton 35-5 and the Wellington Axemen 19-17.
In the women’s competition, Norths had beaten Petone 22-7 in the opening game of the day. The two teams met in the last game, with Norths scoring three straight tries to lead 15-0 at halftime. Petone should have scored once but for a knockout over the line in the corner.
Norths scored their fourth try from the opening try of the second half and were soon in for their fifth, which cemented their title win. Both sides scored again before fulltime and Norths won 32-5, or six tries to one.
Norths were captained by guest player Ayesha Leti-L’iga, and they had some other outside experienced players in their squad such as Georgia Daals.
This was the Porirua club’s first Wellington women’s club sevens title since 2018.
There was no women’s playoff games, but the OBU Impalas enjoyed a good tournament at Trentham. They beat Petone 31-24. They had three Te Puni sisters in their line-up and were captained by Te Arani Te Puni.
For full results visit: https://xplorer.rugby/american-ambassador-7s
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Meanwhile five Wellington schools are playing in the Condor 7s Schools Nationals at Mt Maunganui today and tomorrow.
Results by school on day one Saturday below.
St Pat’s Silverstream
- beat Francis Douglas 31-0
- beatt Sacred Heart 28-22
- beatt Condor Wasps 31-12
- lost to Hamilton Boys 7-26
- Play in 9-16 bracket to tomorrow
Wellington College
- lost to Whangarei Boys 10-24
- lost to Tauranga Boys 10-31
- beat Liston 21-19
- Play in 17-24 bracket tomorrow
Hutt International Boys’ School
- lost to Marlborough 5-36
- lost to New Plymouth 12-45
- lost to St Peters Cambridge 5-34
- Play in 25-32 bracket tomorrow
Rathkeale College
- Lost to Hamilton 0-56
- Lost to Napier 17-28
- Lost to Westlake 5-33
- Play in 25-32 bracket tomorrow
St Mary’s College
- beat Kerikeri 41-5
- beat Rosehill 41-12
- lost to Christchurch 17-24
- Play Hamilton in QF tomorrow morning
