Africanada Wins 10th Caribbean Sevens
(Atlantis tournament #51)
Emil Signes
November 1996
JUNE 20, 2013 (rev. August 27, 2013)
Atlantis at Caribbean Sevens 1996
Top: Ben Baumer, Dave DiSorbo, Brian Dettling, Mike
Matkovic, John Flamish, Jason Wood, Jeremy Revell,
Jeff Hollier, Keith McLean, Kevin Torkelson, Arty Fitzpatrick,
Dave Ries, Emil Signes
Bottom: Bob Bogen, Brian O'Grady, Pablo Perez, Ben
Haraway, Dixie Dean, Al Caravelli, Billy Gonsalves,
Mike May, Scott Davis, Jason Cohen, Andy Hiner
Africanada
Africanada was a product of the imagination of
Canadian U-23 Organizer and Manager Karl Fix of Regina,
Saskatchewan. When Canadian international Rob Snow returned from
Eastern Provinces to Canada, he introduced Fix to two South
Africans living in Canada whose brother had paid his contract in
South Africa. Fix contacted the South African, Michau Huisamen,
and between them they decided to create and sponsor “Africanada,”
a team representing top sevens players from their two countries.
Africanada included the following players:
Hendrik Truter, Transvaal, Western Transvaal, Springbok 7s
Toni Markow, Western Provinces, Eastern Provinces, Springbok 7s
Riaan Van Jarsveld, Eastern Provinces
Rich Versted, U. Of Port Elizabeth
David Lougheed, Canada 7s & 15s
Gregor Dixon, Canada 7s
Rob Card, Canada 7s & 15s
Scott Bryan, Canada
Speedster Markow led the scoring with 12 tries, followed by
Lougheed and Van Jarsveld (9), and Truter (8). Each member of the
team scored at least two tries.
Africanada was jointly coached by John Garvie, Assistant Coach of
Canada U-23 and Kolie Brandt, Coach of the University of Port
Elizabeth and Technical Advisor to Eastern Provinces Rugby Union.
National Teams
The Caribbean Sevens took place just
two months before the Punta del Este World Cup qualifying
tournament in Punta del Este, and three teams attempting to
qualify -- Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas --
participated. The Bahamas were never a factor, but just two days
after their Caribbean 15-a-side championship battle in Barbados,
won by Bermuda, the two West Indies powers were to meet again.
Border Reivers
Local pundits seemed to be unanimous that if
Africanada was the favorite, the Border Reivers were not far
behind. A team composed primarily of top players from the Scottish
Borders, the Reivers were hurt by the professional European
league, but still sent over a strong team. After the first day of
play, in fact, they led all contenders with a 155 point spread
over their opponents after just three games.
Political Incorrect: Atlantis Spic and
Atlantis Mick
Once again, Atlantis came with a two sides
consisting of a few veterans combined with several tour rookies,
13 to be exact. Atlantis’ two teams were broken up as shown below
-- for the purpose of the tournament, we were called I and II, but
our internal nicknames for the teams were Atlantis Spic (in honor
of captain Al Caravelli of Argentina) and Atlantis Mick for
captain Arty Fitzpatrick. (But for Englishman Drew Fautley’s late
departure they would have been Atlantis Malvinas and Atlantis
Falkland.)
As a son of Spanish and Cuban parents, I was used to hearing
and smiling at the name Spic, and when I was a kid our family
Sunday gatherings were referred to by our friends as the
"Spicnics" ... And the Irish have been around long enough that
Mick no longer is considered pejorative by most Irish that I
know. (So much for justification (or at least
explanation) of terms, I will, however, from here on
refer to them as Atlantis I and II again.)
Representative honors are shown next to the player’s name; an (R)
indicates Atlantis tour rookie.
Atlantis I
123 Keith McLean, Phila/Whitemarsh, East
217 Brian Dettling, Cinci Wolfhounds, East
314 Kevin Torkelson, Phoenix, Pacific (R)
78 John Flamish, Phila/Whitemarsh, East, US
267 Al Caravelli, Old Blue (capt), Pacific, So Cal, Argentina
268 Scott Davis, Phila/Whitemarsh
240 David Dean, NOVA, East, US
313 Dave Ries, MD Exiles
(R)
312 Dave DiSorbo, Schenectady / White Plains (R)
292 Brian O’Grady, New
York
303 Pablo Perez, Old Blue / OMBAC (R)
Atlantis II
320 Mike Matkovic, White Plains (R)
319 Andy Hiner, Tempe (R)
315 Ben Baumer, Chattanooga (R)
247 Jeff Hollier, Virginia
223 Jason Wood, OMBAC
282 Mike May, Chattanooga (R)
316 Jason Cohen, White Plains (R)
56 Arty Fitzpatrick, Rockaway / Montauk, East (R)
321 Jeremy Revell, Phoenix (R)
317 Billy Gonsalves, Newport, East (R)
318 Ben Haraway, Cleveland Rovers, Midwest (R)
Bob Bogen of Cape Fear was the Atlantis manager and I was the
coach.
Other teams. Other teams included participants from various
parts of the Caribbean, as well as several teams from Venezuela
and Guyana. Several local teams were also included in the field of
24, down from 32 last year.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament was
Venezuela InGoal, a composite side named after a bar in Caracas
and sponsored by José Victori, a leading Venezuelan rugby
enthusiast. InGoal put out a very young side buttressed by 3 young
American imports sponsored by Victori. They included a high school
All American? Dan ??? and Sacred Heart College (NY)’s scrum half
Pete Malanga, who played very well and helped InGoal to an upset
quarter-final berth.
Format
The format, which forced the winner to play eight
games, was as follows: six brackets of 4, with each team going
into a second bracket of three -- four Cup brackets and four Plate
brackets. The top two in each second-day bracket then met in
quarterfinals.
Last year, I wrote that I thought the competition ought to be
segregated into competitive level brackets from the beginning, but
I must confess that I’ve gotten to like this format. All the teams
seem to enjoy competing against each other, no one is intimidated
by having to play the top teams, and for composite teams such as
Atlantis, it gave our players a chance to mesh in early round
games before the knock-out round.
Weather, Saturday Results
Thursday and Friday were typical of Trinidad’s rainy
season (which is kind of like England but with temperatures 40
degrees higher): bursts of sun interrupted by clouds, showers, and
driving rain. Saturday it was fair all day. Sunday, after a sunny
start, a deluge hit, and based on last year, I confidently
predicted to the team that we would be playing underwater for the
rest of the day. Fortunately, it lasted about 5 minutes, and the
rest of the day was fine.
At the end of the first day, all six favorites had easily won
their division: the Border Reivers with an incredible 160-5 PF-PA
record in three games. The other top point spreads after the first
day were held by Africanada (131), Trinidad and Tobago (92),
Atlantis II (88), Atlantis I (79), and Bermuda (73).
Atlantis Results
Atlantis finished Saturday at 6-0, with a
for-against total of 182-15. Atlantis I was the only unscored upon
team of the day (79-0), while Atlantis II was the scoring machine
of the two (103-15).
In Sunday’s round robin play, Atlantis I easily won its round.
Atlantis II, however, was sabotaged by a Trinidad & Tobago
national team that dominated the kickoff and scored from it twice.
We were in a state of shock and continually made bad decisions in
a game the hosts were to dominate 24-5.
Our hosts had seeded the tournament so that would not meet until
the finals if we could stay unbeaten, but this defeat meant that
both Atlantis teams had to play in the quarterfinals against each
other. Just as last year, this was an extremely difficult match
which was knotted at 0-0 (!) at half time, and 5-5 four minutes
later. Al’s team finally pulled away with a Keith McLean try in
the last minute for a 12-5 victory. McLean’s score meant that all
22 Atlantis players had scored at least one try in the tournament.
The semifinal began with two quick Africanada tries, and it looked
as though Atlantis was through. Quickly, however, Atlantis came
back, with tries by Pablo Perez following a long run by Dave Ries,
and by Dave DiSorbo on a long run of his own.
Early in the second half, trailing 17-12, Atlantis nearly got into
the lead after a long break by Dixie Dean. If his pass to Al
Caravelli had made its mark, Atlantis would have scored a try.
Instead, an interception took the ball the other way, and
Africanada now led 22-12. When Dave DiSorbo dropped the ball in
goal trying to kick it out, Africanada scored the clincher for a
29-12 victory and a trip to the final. Still it had been a good
tournament for Atlantis (10-3, 334-97), and many future Atlantis
-- and possibly a couple of US -- veterans were blooded.
Other Sunday Results
Just after T&T had knocked off Atlantis II,
Bermuda had a shock of its own in store, as it took out the Border
Reivers 26-17 in the quarterfinals, setting up a semi-final
rematch of Thursday’s Caribbean’s 15s championship. In a nearly
point for point reversal of Thursday’s match (29-8 to Bermuda),
the host nation knocked off the visitors 29-12.
Championship Final. Africanada went quickly ahead of T&T and
the outcome was never in doubt. Nevertheless, T&T continued to
battle to the final buzzer and Earle Riley’s second try got the
hosts into double digits as Africanada scored a 29-10 win.
Atlantis scoring summary. I’d like to publicly apologize for not
giving Arty’s team a kicker (I guess I confused the two Cohen
twins). At any rate, of Atlantis II’s 26 tries, only 7 were
converted, with the percentage decreasing as the tournament went
on. Atlantis I, on the other hand, converted 25 of 31. As noted
above, all 22 Atlantis players scored at least one try. Scoring
leaders were
Scoring leaders
Atl #
|
Name
|
T
|
C
|
Pts
|
233
|
Dean
|
6
|
15
|
60
|
318
|
Haraway
|
7
|
0
|
35
|
268
|
Davis
|
3
|
10
|
35
|
312
|
DiSorbo
|
6
|
0
|
30
|
321
|
Revell
|
4
|
0
|
20
|
301
|
May
|
1
|
7
|
19
|
|
Team totals
|
|
|
|
Hospitality
The 4 day journey began in a civilized manner in the
T&T airport Wednesday night, where we were hosted to a couple
of cold beers in the parking lot by our host GF United RFC.
The next evening, following about 5 hours of practice, we,
Africanada and Venezuelan CRUM were hosted by the Carib brewery
and then spent a brief time at a street festival in Gasparillo, a
town on the Southwestern part of Trinidad. “Carib in de hand!” was
the cry of the evening.
Following the tournament, many of the participants closed Sunday
evening at the Pelican, a bar next to the large Savannah in the
middle of Port of Spain. It was there I got the phone numbers for
a Cuban rugby contact; I still hope to be able to participate in a
rugby (preferably sevens) tournament in the land of my mother’s
birth.
The host club Trinidad Enthusiasts, is again to be commended for a
wonderful tournament. Special thanks go to Brian Stollmeyer, one
of their hardest workers and the point of contact for all
participants.
Home Pages
I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of Mauricio
Sanmartín, a South American now living in El Paso, who was playing
for the Caracas Exiles. Mauricio surprised me by putting up a
series of pages on the net based on the Caribbean Sevens. One --
http://scorpions.simplenet.com/trinidad/atlantis.htm [2013: long gone] --
describes Atlantis and its accomplishments.
Atlantis is looking forward to the 1997 Caribbean Sevens where,
for starters, we hope to get back to the finals we were in in
1995. Once we get there, we’ll have a new goal.