Atlantis Reaches Final at Limerick 7s
Note of 2013: I found a poorly
scanned copy of a
May 25, 1992 Rugby article and copied it
verbatim to this file. (I could not
find a digital copy of what I originally wrote for Rugby.)
Roster (Atlantis Number, Name, Club)
36 Will Brewington, MOB
158 Al Dekin, Hartford
107 Andy Dujakovich, Kansas City
78 John Flamish,
Philadelphia-Whitemarsh
159 Steve Jung, Madison (WI)
160 John
McCluskey, Manhattan
8 Dave Priestas, Bethlehem
99 John Redmond, MOB
58 Mike Siano, Life
College
Limerick, Ireland. May 2, 1992. Although they
lost the championship match 40-0 to France in the first annual Aer
Lingus Limerick International Sevens, the Atlantis invitational
side (not expected to win a single game) well surpassed
expectations by defeating four top sides, including the French in
an earlier preliminary match.
Atlantis
Atlantis is an invitational sevens side formed to
improve the level of sevens within the U.S. Atlantis fields
teams with a mix of experience and inexperience; when playing
abroad, Atlantis tries to field competitive sides. Until this
tournament, Atlantis' best achievement had been reacing the
semifinals of the Taupiri Sevens, New Zealand's top club
tournament.
Availability of players was limited by fifteens commitments and
the heavy national sevens schedule. Still, the sevens
community has identified its players so well that it can easily
manage to put a squad of good sevens players out there.
Participating Teams
The tournament consisted of eight teams, divided
into two 4-team, round-robin brackets.
Atlantis competed in a bracket with France, a team wearing the
national colors that included 1991 World Cup wing Philippe
Saint-Andre and two players from the 1992 French Hong Kong 7s
squad – Thierry Janeczek and Didier Faugeron; the Irish
Wolfhounds, featuring top Irish players; and the Bective Rangers,
winners of the Old Belvedere 7s, the top club 7s tourney in
Ireland.
The other bracket consisted of a Welsh President's VII, actually a
Welsh Under-21 squad; the Penguins, a top invitational side
featuring English and Welsh players; and all-star sides from two
Irish counties, Limerick and Munster.
Atlantis' Preparation
We arrived in Shannon at 6 a.m. Friday morning with virtually no
sleep, fought our way through Friday, and then got to bed early
for a full night's sleep. We then trained for two hours
Friday morning and two hours Friday afternoon and after an 8 p.m.
Dinner, everyone crashed for the night.
Atlantis 26, Irish Wolfhounds 6
A surprisingly easy 26-6 win for Atlantis was highlighted by Mike
Siano's ball-winning and open-field running, and Al Dekin's two
tries. Will Brewington, Andy Dujakovich and John McCluskey
had one try each, and McCluskey added three conversions.
Atlantis' great support, ball handling and distribution were
simply too much for the Wolfhounds.
Atlantis 6, France 4
A boring game between Atlantis and France saw both teams spend
most of the fourteen battling in the scrums; with barging,
fighting for position, collapsing, wheeling, growling, etc., being
the order of the day. This was in Atlantis' favor as it kept
the ball away from the open field where the French are so
dangerous.
The French scored early on a long run by Bernat-Salles, but wing
Steve Jung sprinted 70 yards across the field to keep him away
from the posts. These two points Jung saved eventually turned into
game-winners (4-0).
With no time left, Atlantis converted a French turnover into an Al
Dekin try which was set up by at least one pass from everyone on
the team. Dekin scored close enough to the posts for John
McCluskey to slot the winning conversion (6-4).
Atlantis 22, Bective Rangers 8
Atlantis beat the Bective Rangers, 22-8, behind tries by scrumhalf
Andy Dujakovich, Steve Jung (2), and John Flamish. Al Dekin
made three conversions.
SF: Atlantis 20, Welsh President's VII 16
In one semifinal, Atlantis, the Bracket 1 champ, met the Welsh
President's VII, the Bracket 2 runner-up.
Atlantis went up early on the young Welsh team, and led 16-4 with
less than two minutes left, on tries by Andy Dujakovich, John
McCluskey and Will Brewington and 2 conversions by McCluskey.
The Welsh then scored to make the game 16-10, and on an ensuing
possession Dave Priestastried to create breathing time for his
exhausted team by clearing to touch. Unfortunately, the ball
styaed in play, and in a movement that seemed to consume eternity,
the Welsh tied the game at the whistle (16-16).
It appeared that Atlantis had nothing left to survive sudden-death
overtime, but in the 5th minute Will Brewington picked off a pass,
ran about 40 yards, and linked up with Mike Siano. Siano
barrelled into a Welsh defender and put Andy Dujakovich through
for a 20-yard try (20-16).
About 10 of the 14 players just lay on the ground for 30 seconds
following the final whistle.
In the other semifinal, France beat the Penguins, the Bracket 1
champ, 16-12.
Final: France 40, Atlantis 0
Atlantis stayed in the final for about 5 minutes, but then our
total exhaustion, jet-lagged and playing 5 games in 6 hours,
became apparent. By the end of the 10-minute first half, the score
was 14-0.
France then inserted 2 fresh players early in the second half and
ran in five tries at will to finish the scoring at 40-0.
An embarrassing game perhaps, but as the only blemish on the
team's performance, it couldn't detract from the success of
Atlantis.
POSTSCRIPT
Team Evaluation
As in its 1990 visit to New Zealand, most of the talk about
Atlantis centered around the quality of our handling and the way
we moved the ball quickly away from pressure (that is, until the
final, where we were abysmal at it). Our team speed was
adequate, no better, but our defensive pressure was good and our
cover at desperation situations tenacious.
As witnessed by the second French game, however, we still do not
have the speed to compete with the very best: we need to shut them
down before they get the ball into space.
Player Evaluation
The presence of Will Brewington (MOB), the current Eagle
sevens captain (and possibly the best all-around sevens player in
the U.S.), made a huge contribution to the team's success.
The play of former 7s and 15s Eagle Mike Siano (Life
College), who has gotten a selfish reputation, was simply
awesome. We'll need to start listening to the beat of the
drummer Siano marches to.
The other prop, John Redmond (MOB), a “have boots, will
travel” kind of guy, is an excellent sevens scrummager you can
always count on to play a solid workmanlike game.
John Flamish, the back-up forward, is a 6'2, 220 lb.
Philadelphia-Whitemarsh wing turned flanker. A former decathlete,
John was instrumental in setting up the try that beat the French.
Scrumhalf Andy Dujakovich (Kansas City) was first selected
to the 7s Eagles in 1989 and continues to get better and better.
He was one of the standouts of the tournament.
Flyhalf Dave Priestas (Bethlehem), the playmaker of the
squad, is one of those players without a lot of speed that has
good field vision and can begin movements to be finished by
others.
John McCluskey (Manhattan) was our Irish connection:
both his parents were born in Ireland. John is an excellent
link player and was our leading scorer, with two tries and six
conversions.
Wing Al Dekin (Hartford) was taken on tour sight unseen,
and justified his selection. Al fit in well with the team,
scored three tries and ended up as our kickoff specialist.
The other wing, Steve Jung (Madison, WI), was one of only
two non-East players on tour. Steve has only played rugby for 10
months, but his outstanding speed and good size (6', 195 lbs)
brought him to the selectors' attention at the 1991 All-Star
Sevens – in only his 3rd month of rugby. Steve celebrated
his 24th birthday on tour, had a couple of excellent runs against
France and holds great promise for the future.
Thanks
Among the many people that need to be thanked are
Jerry Boland of Aer Lingus, the airline which co-sponsored the
tourney with Carling Black Label Beer, David Deighan of Shannon
Development Co.; the staff at the Limerick Ryan Hotel; Gerry
Moore, Brendan O'Dowd and Michael Wallace of the Munster Branch of
the Irish Rugby Union; and finally Jim Bradshaw, our liaison, who
became a good friend and made life easy for all of us through his
constant attention and assistance.
