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Pacific Coast and the West won their respective pools in the men’s All-Star 7s at Randall’s Island, NY Saturday.

Pacific Coast won their first pool games fairly easily as predicted and cruised to a 3-0 record. The West were also 3-0, but had to really work for it, edging the Northeast by a try and the Collegiates by a conversion.

That conversion proved costly for the college players as they ended up 1-2, along with Northeast and Midwest. Northeast moves to the Cup semi finals thanks to points difference, whereas had the Collegiates tied their game against the West, they would have moved on.

For the West, Teddy Omondi’s early conversion was the difference.

“In tournament play all conversions matter,” said West coach Sean Knight.

“Early on there’s a big difference between being down 5-0 and being down 7-0. And then points difference, as we saw, comes into play.”

Knight said he was not overwhelmed by the quality of his team’s play Saturday.

“No two ways about it you have to be consistent, and I am not sure we were,” Knight said. “Hopefully we’re on the upturn. We have not played our best rugby. All our players played well, and all our players showed they weren’t on top of their game.”

Pacific Coast front up on D

The Pacific Coast had a much easier day outscoring their opponents 93 points to 7. Though the 'Grizzlies' were free scoring, it was their tight defense that proved the key for them.

“I don’t think we missed a tackle,” said head coach John Tyler. “I don’t have the stats in front of me but we made close to 100 percent of our tackles.”

The one try they did give up wasn’t from a missed tackle, but a smart kick wide by the Mid-Atlantic that PJ Komongnan gathered up for the try.

But that was in a game where the Grizzlies won 24-7.

“Our defense was solid,” said Tyler. “We really worked on playing good defense and forcing turnovers and turning those into tries. Mose Timote did a great job organizing and communicating. Jone [Naqica] was great.”

Tyler said he was concerned the team would start slowly – perhaps a hangover from San Francisco Golden Gate’s season, since they contributed several players to the Grizzly cause – but two quick tries against an inexperienced Southern California team got them the start the coach wanted.

“Our experienced players played well and played like experienced players, but our less experienced players really stepped up,” said Tyler.

The coach singled out Mike Nelson and Suli Holani for their defensive effort, and also longtime Arizona-based standout Rick Darrow, who energized the team with his big tackles.

“It was a good start,” said Tyler. “We’ve got to keep up that pressure.”
 

Day 1 Results

Pool A

Mid-Atlantic 21 Combined 10
Pacific Coast 40 SoCal 0
Pacific Coast 24 Mid-Atlantic 7
SoCal 21 Combined 14
Mid-Atlantic 21 SoCal 10
Pacific Coast 29 Combined 0

Pool B

Collegiates 19 Midwest 12
West 17 Northeast 0
West 26 Midwest 19
Northeast 38 Collegiates 7
West 12 Collegiates 10
Midwest 24 Northeast 12

Day 2 Fixtures

Cup Semi Finals

Pacific Coast v. Northeast
Mid-Atlantic v. West

Bowl Semi Final

SoCal v. Collegiates
Midwest v. Combined