February 7-8, 1997: Atlantis at Adelaide Sevens
(Atlantis tournament #54)
Emil Signes
March 2, 1997
July 28, 2013
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.
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.