Seahawk Shine at Manchester Sevens
Manchester 7’s 10th – 13th July by LPT Jamie Caruana RNAS Culdrose entered 2 teams in this years Manchester 7’s tournament which was held at Macclesfield Rugby club. The teams were called Seahawk Islanders and the Flying Hawks. A total of 25 personnel went on the weekend. The lads left bright and early Friday morning and treated themselves to the Local Smokey Joes Hungryman breakfast; a great way to start the weekend. The coach took nearly 8 hours to get to the destination where the team set up their tents for a fantastic weekend ahead. That evening the players relaxed with a few beverages at the Festival Marquee. Saturday was the start of the tournament. Several competitions took place with the likes of Sale Sharks and the British Army competing in the £6000 prize winning main event. The Culdrose teams had a great day with the Seahawk Islanders winning all of their games and the Flying Hawks reaching the Plate Knockout stage in what was a bruising last game. The Flying Hawks played the Prison Service and attracted a large crowd. There were massive hits especially from LA(AH) Mark Dolan, and fantastic tries scored from both teams; undoubtedly the best match of the tournament so far. The next event was in the evening where the Culdrose players enjoyed the Fancy dress competition dressing up as the local sheep. Sunday was the knockout stages where first up was the Seahawk Islanders. The Islanders played a strong side in the 4th round and narrowly beat them. After that the Islanders were back on again and comfortably won the Quarter finals to reach the Semi finals. Flying Hawks were next up and they were up against a giant side. The Flying Hawks scored first through lightening winger AET Harrison. After that it was a little down hill for the Hawks as they lost 25 points to 5. Never the less the Hawks were delighted as they re-gathered and continued to support the Islanders. The Islanders were up against an experienced team in the Semi’s and the Islanders star man stole the show with a terrific performance. NA Kava Ifereimi side stepped the whole team to score under the posts which led to the whole team performing fantastically. The team won comfortably. At 1700 the Islanders were in the Final against a very good team called the Panthers. On the main pitch in front of a massive crowd the Islanders new they had to perform. The final kicked off and the team started in the best way possible scoring 2 tries, 1 from NA Tulakepa and the other from NA Ifereimi. It was nail biting stuff and the Islanders were hitting their tackles so hard they had several warnings. In the end the referee had enough and sin binned NA Mua for lashing out and shortly afterwards sin binned LOGS Buinimasi for a dangerous tackle. This prevented the team playing their sparkling rugby which attracted all the crowds. The Panthers had 1 man that was like Usain Bolt and he ran in 3 tries in the second half. The final score was 22 – 12 to the Panthers. The Islanders were gutted but held their heads up high in what was a terrific display of Naval Rugby. Both teams had trained for 3 weeks prior to the weekend including beach runs, interval running and SAQ Circuits. LPT Caruana was delighted with everyone’s performance and attitude over the weekend and this can only help improve the future of Navy rugby.