Petone seal women’s sevens title with second tournament win

• By Steven White
• Photos by Andy McArthur

The Petone Ponies are this year’s WRFU Women’s 7s series winners with a convincing win today’s second of two tournaments at Rugby League Park.

Petone won last week’s first tournament so were in the box seat to take out the series. Sevens rugby can throw up surprising results, and all it needs is the bounce of the ball or a couple of injuries and it can all change. Similarly, Petone were missing three players from last week who are playing in today’s NZRU Ignite 7s.

But they made sure of their series win by applying constant pressure and taking their chances, and they beat Old Boys University 31-14 in today’s final to lift the Eleanor Roosevelt Cup high and add it to the club’s collection of silverware won in 2026.

Petone scored four first half tries to lead 24-0 at halftime and then pulled away in the second to complete their unbeaten run in this year’s series.

Petone had earlier wins over Avalon (29-15), OBU (31-5), Poneke (27-0) and Avalon again in their semi-final (44-10). Beaten finalists OBU had beaten Pōneke in their semi-final (35-12) and Pōneke then beat Avalon in the 3 v 4 match (22-5).

This was Petone’s third win in four years, as shown below.

The tournament was played under heavy cloud cover with some rain about, but it brightened up near the end and the sun came out during the final.

Sevens rugby continues next week with the Hurricanes Schools tournament in Feilding, followed by the two weekend’s of WRFU club American Ambassador’s 7s at Rugby League Park on 21 and 28 November. It is understood that some 13 teams are already entered for that including defending National champions Hutt Old Boys Marist and Paremata-Plimmerton who are heading to Fiji to play in the Coral Coast 7s in January.

Women’s series winners since 2015

• 2026: Petone
• 2025: Northern United
• 2024: Petone
• 2023: Petone
• 2022: Marist St Pat’s
• 2021: Not played For
• 2020: Oriental-Rongotai
• 2019: Old Boys University
• 2018: Northern United
• 2017: Marist St Pat’s
• 2016: St Mary’s College
• 2015: Oriental-Rongotai

Re-live the action from today’s tournament: