February 7-8, 1997: Atlantis at Adelaide Sevens

(Atlantis tournament #54)
Emil
Signes
March 2, 1997
July 28, 2013

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Atlantis squad in Adelaide
Atlantis at Adelaide Sevens 1997
Standing, L to R: Scott Stephens, Dixie Dean, Marty O'Connor, Don Younger, Kevin Torkelson, Jon Hinkin
Kneeling, L to R: Al Caravelli, Dave Lougheed, Bill Russell, Steve Hiatt, Vuka Tau


Note of 2013: this article is excerpted and very slightly modified from an article I wrote on the Atlantis tour of South Australia - primarily to participate in the Adelaide Sevens.

I found two articles I wrote on this tournament: the first - Atlantis Tours South Australia - was published in Rugby Magazine in its March 17, 1997 issue, and also includes a writeup on the Elizabeth Sevens.  The second - Adelaide: Toughest Sevens Tournament in the World? - I found in a file on my computer; it was obviously for publication somewhere, but I have no idea where. Above are links to both.

Additionally I have excerpted and put just the Adelaide portion of the tour in what follows.

Atlantis Tours South Australia: Adelaide
Emil Signes

In certainly its most ambitious tour to date, Atlantis took its sevens team to South Australia where it participated in both the Elizabeth Sevens --- the oldest continuous sevens tournament in the Southern Hemisphere -- and the Adelaide Sevens, perhaps the toughest sevens tournament, top to bottom, in the world today.

Atlantis 33 Queensland 17.  OK, there was the minor matter of six losses at Adelaide, but we were one mistake away from beating Northern Transvaal, and Queensland defeated semifinalists Western Province (SA) and Wellington Hurricanes (NZ) as well as Cup Champion Natal (SA).  We were competitive in most of our games, and the proof was this victory, which will be the crowning achievement of the tournament for us.  This was one of those "nobody can take it away from you" life experiences.

Invitation.  Australian Sevens Coach Jeff Miller was at the Fiji Sevens in 1996 and was impressed with the way Atlantis played. He secured an invitation for us and we were issued the challenge to be competitive.

The Team.  Our players included a geographical cross-section of the US plus our first Canadian international, Dave Lougheed, who turned out to be the team MVP.  There were six Eagles on the squad, including three who were invited to the pre-Hong Kong 1997 Eagle camp.  High school All American and Collegiate Sevens player Don Younger was our developmental project.

Name
Age
Ht
Wt
Positions
Club
National Teams
Both Tournaments






Steve Hiatt
28
5'11
180
Back
Old Blues (CA)
US 7s, 15
Jon Hinkin
30
5/11
180
W, C
OMBAC
US 7s
Dave Lougheed
28
6'3
205
P, W
Balmy Beach (ONT)
Canada
Bill Russell (Capt)
33
6'
194
SH, H
Old Blue (NY)
US 7s
Scott Stephens
35
6'2
195
P, H
Washington
US 7s
Vuka Tau
28
5'6
170
SH
Tongan Yankees

Kevin Torkelson
28
6'1
195
P, H
Phoenix

Don Younger
19
6'5
218
P
U. Indiana

Elizabeth Only






Al Caravelli
39
5'6
150
SH, H
Old Blue (NY)
Argentina
Adelaide Only






David Dean
32
5'10
160
FH
NOVA
US 7s
Martin O'Connor
29
6'1
200
C
NOVA
US 7s
Adelaide Reserve






Lungisa Kama
29
5'11
180
W
(borrowed from Natal)


Al Caravelli was team manager, and was assisted by Bill Gardner, who took over the role while Al played in Elizabeth.  Dave Wickenden was our exceptionally valuable physiotherapist and acupuncturist/ pain management expert (and was to end up providing the same services to the Fijians).  I was the coach.

Trip.  We left Wednesday night and arrived in Elizabeth at about 3 PM Friday (with our first game to take place at 9 AM Saturday).  For those of us from the East, this meant well in excess of 30 hours traveling time.  We trained from 4 to 6, partook of an Elizabeth RFC barbecue, and then after a brief visit to our hotel bar, crashed for the night.

Elizabeth Sevens

See my article on Elizabeth, split out as a separate file.

Social highlight: Glenelg.  Glenelg is a beach resort on the western outskirts of Adelaide, on the Gulf of St. Vincent, an inlet of the Indian Ocean.  The sand is beautiful and white, the sun was hot (it reached 100 the day we were there), and there was lots to do.  We played volleyball on the beach (some of the boys tried to get into a game with four members of the Australian national women’s beach volleyball squad, with typical success [none]), watched a national triathlon that started and finished at the beach, visited the Vittoria Cafe, where Bill Gardner negotiated, and Al Caravelli consummated, a trade of two T shirts to the proprietors in return for feeding the team (great trade, guys!), and ended up sitting at a sidewalk bar sipping a couple of beers and being subjected to Judge Scott Stephens’ first fine session: probably the coldest fine of all was Stack fining Jon Hinkin for sending his slower brother in his place . . .

Oh, yes -- we also got a brief practice in.

Scrimmages.  We couldn’t complain about the quality of our scrimmage opponents.  Marty O’Connor and Dixie Dean arrived on Monday, and on Tuesday, a day when the temperature reached 107 degrees, we scrimmaged the team from Namoli, Fiji, under the lights after the temperature had dropped to 90.  On the following day, we practiced against the sevens specialists from the Bay of Plenty.  We knew after this second scrimmage that we had the athletic ability and skills to compete with the Bay; whether we could put together a 14-minute game during live tournament competition was another question.

Adelaide Sevens, 2/7-8/1997

It was great to be at another event with some of the best sevens players and coaches in the world.  All teams stayed in the same hotel, ate in the same dining hall, and the atmosphere at the Travelodge got everyone pumped up.  There’s something so special about that environment that’s difficult to describe.  We finished the day with a brief social function for all the players.  It took place at a local mall where all the arcade games were free for everyone, and no one was required to listen to the speakers; a players’ kind of function.

Atlantis 14 Western Province (South Africa) 24.  Atlantis had the run of play in the first minute, but turned the ball over in a situation that was to plague us all weekend -- ball near the sidelines, defenders in the lanes, attackers trapped.  We were in the game and could easily have won, but turnovers killed us.  The positive spin?  We won the second half, 14-12, on tries by Dean and Hinkin.

Atlantis 12 Counties (New Zealand) 36.  Embarrassed in the first half, Atlantis came back on tries by Hinkin and Lougheed, and won another second half, 12-7.  Of more significance was Scott Stephens’ tournament-ending injury.

Atlantis 10 Wellington Hurricanes (New Zealand) 29.  This time we had a good first half, trailing only 12-10 at the intermission before Wellington’s superior athleticism beat us.  The perils of "unlimited substitution" when you don’t know all the rules: Bill Russell had a conversion taken away because he wasn’t on the field when the try was scored.  Tries were by Lougheed and Hinkin.

Atlantis 12 Northern Transvaal (South Africa) 22.  This was a game we threw away.  Trailing 17-12 in the last minute with a penalty kick to us inside their 22 and a huge "It must be a try!" overlap, someone’s head went into reverse and we not only didn’t score, but turned the ball over for their score.  Lougheed and Dean were our try scorers in this game.

Atlantis 0 Auckland (NewZealand) 41.  The game from hell. What could go wrong, did.  What mistakes were capable of being made, were.

Atlantis 33 Queensland (Australia) 17.  It’s nice, when you’re having a rough tournament, to not only put a game together, but to win it.  From Don Younger’s try at 0:09 to Dave Lougheed’s with no time left, this game was ours.  We won both halves (21-12 and 12-5) and earned the cheers and respect of the crowd and our fellow participants.  Other tries were by Hiatt, Hinkin and Tau, with captain Bill converting 3 and Jon 1.  The try of the game (even called the "try of the carnival" by one of the announcers) was when Hinkin kicked the ball over his opposite winger, who got a hand on it and modified its direction.  It bounced off Jon’s head and then several times off both hands before he grabbed it and finished the last 50 yards.  That made the game 21-5 and gave us a little breathing space.

Plate QF: Atlantis 14 Otago (New Zealand) 34.  We started this game just like the previous one: two quick converted tries by Vuka and Donnie, it was Atlantis 14, Otago 0, and the crowd was going nuts. We won the ensuing ball and were again on the attack when, as in our first game, we got our FH, C and W all boxed into the sideline by defenders in the passing lanes.  No one attacked, we turned the ball over, and then a quick throw in, etc etc, and we were behind.  In the last two minutes, with the score 27-14 we had the ball and a chance to score with time left, but instead turned it over to produce a final score that was not really indicative of the game.
 
Summaries

There’s several ways to summarize our success in South Australia.  Version 1, the one we’d like to leave you with, is simply, as noted above, that in a tournament that featured some of the best sevens players in the world, there was one game where the scoreboard read "Atlantis 33 Queensland 17."

Version 2 is our W-L record: 3-2 in Elizabeth, 1-6 in Adelaide.  Ahem, let’s move right along to version 3.

Version 3 is more intriguing, and also has a certain validity to it:  Atlantis 5-2 against the spread.  The bookies on the ground had a public and legal betting stand and this is how we fared in their eyes.

Opponent
Spread
Result
Net
Western Province (RSA)
+25
-10
+15
Counties (NZL)
+30
-24
+6
Wellington (NZL)
+30
-19
+11
Auckland (NZL)
+15
-41
-26
Queensland (AUS)
+12
+17
+29
Otago (NZL)
+8
-20
-12


Not too much comfort to us, really, but if one is to be evaluated by others’ expectations of them, we came out way on top in this regard.

Of more importance  were comments from several highly regarded Southern Hemisphere sevens people that our patterns were sound, our style of play very good, and our athleticism adequate.  They noted, as we already had, that our weaknesses were mistakes in execution.

By the way, the real Jon Hinkin returned, and was our leading try scorer with 4, 3 of them from his own kicks.

Atlantis Scoring Summary, Adelaide & Total (Elizabeth + Adelaide)
Player
<---
Adelaide
--->
<---
Both
--->

Tries
Conv
Pts
Tries
Conv
Pts
Dave Lougheed
4
0
20
10
0
50
Bill Russell
0
8
16
2
19
48
Jon Hinkin
4
2
24
5
5
35
Steve Hiatt
1
0
5
4
0
20
Don Younger
2
0
10
5
0
25
Vuka Tau
2
1
12
3
1
17
David Dean
2
0
10
2
0
10
Scott Stephens
0
0
0
1
0
5
Total
15
11
97
32
25
210
Opponents
35
14
203
45
22
269


Miscellany

Atlanteans on other squads.  With the brutal format, there were injuries galore, and four Atlanteans got to play beyond their team’s elimination.  Vuka Tau was picked up by Otago, Don Younger by Northern Transvaal, Steve Hiatt by Auckland, and Dave Lougheed first by Auckland and then by the Bay of Plenty.  Dave had a great try for Auckland, leaping in the air to snare a kickoff and scoring himself, but all he got from his teammates was a fine for being the only player in the tournament to lose three times to Counties.

Atlantis tournament records.  When Al Caravelli got in the Auckland game for 30 seconds as an injury reserve, he became, at 39,  the oldest person to ever play in the Adelaide Sevens.  In the Queensland game, Don Younger snared the opening kickoff against Queensland and scored.  The announcer noted that it was the fastest try in the tournament (I had it at 0:09).

Don Younger: Speedy Slam Dunking Stud.  Adelaide has a "fastest man" contest in which each team nominates a player to compete.  The format is two heats of seven players each, with the top three of each heat advancing to the final.  Players lie on their backs in-goal, and after the "ready, set" of the announcers, go on the whistle.  They run to the 22, pick up a ball, and sprint the rest of the way to the opposite goal line, with the first to ground the ball a $1500 winner.

His teammates convinced our entrant, 6'5 19-year old Don Younger, that if he was not in contention to win the race, he should, instead of grounding it, slam dunk the ball over the cross bar.  In the first heat, Don ran comfortably in 3rd place and so needed to preserve his entry into the final.  With Roger Randle blatantly cheating (rolling over on the "set") and starting way ahead of the field in the final, there was no way anyone else was going to win.  Still Don was in third place all the way beyond the far 22, when we could see him shift gears and head to the crossbar.  A final slowdown, a leap, and a huge slam dunk!  Yes!!!  (Rugby players are easily amused.)

Post Script.  Australian Sevens Coach and Queenslander Jeff Miller, who was responsible for the original invitation, told us "I hated to see you beat Queensland, but it’s good that you did."  Our performance validated his recommendation of us, proved our attractiveness and has already gotten us a return invitation.  We look back at the trip with excitement about our victory, regret about key mistakes in three of our losses, and an eagerness to return, even stronger, next year.  We also look forward to working with all the appropriate people to make this happen.

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