December 2-3, 2000: Atlantis Men and Women at Caribbean Sevens

(Atlantis tournament #84)
Emil Signes

December 2000
JUNE 25, 2013 (rev. July 21, 2013)


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All Atlantis squads at
          Carib Sevens
December 3, 2000: Atlantis - 2 men's teams, 1 women's team - at Caribbean Sevens, Port of Spain, T&T
Standing: Stef Glecos, Phil Drury, Rob Balnis, Bobby Blunt, Steve Robke, Rick Snow, Meredith Whalen, Jim Brill, Ben Bush, Helen Bateup, Paul Enright, Monica Phillips, Kevin Linzey, Leyda Carvajal, Emil Signes, Jeff Reuther (Jeff played for New Orleans)
Kneeling: Chris Ryan, Katrinka Blunt, Clint Erasmus, Dana Creager, Jack Foley, Pam Irby, Eric Jaick, Jenna White, Greg Schor, Linda Borgeson, Jim "Kermit" Egan, Marc Frey
Seated: Al Caravelli, Doug Brown, Alex Magleby


Note of June 2013: I couldn't find a digital version of this in my files, but it was published in the December 29, 2000 Rugby.  I retyped the entire article.


Port of Spain, Trinidad, December 2-3, 2000.  The Caribbean Sevens is always a great tournament and this year Rugby Ecosse of Scotland defeated Anti-Assassins of England 38-36 in the men's final.  The Yeomen of Canada topped Atlantis 17-5 in the first-ever women's competition.

MEN'S DIVISION

The men's division was brutal to win, with eight games required over two days in 90 degree heat.  Recognizing this, a squad of eleven is allowed.  For Atlantis, with 19 players total, this meant one squad of 9 and one of 10.

Rugby Ecosse

Rugby Ecosse is a Scottish invitational side formed by brothers Keith and Terry O'Connor to demonstrate that the Scots are still capable of playing good sevens.  Over time, the SRU has suported Rugby Ecosse and asked them to incorporate some of Scotland's younger players. To date they have competed in the Paris, Israel, Budapest and Kinsale 7s.

Rugby Ecosse's professionals included Murray Wallace, capped for Scotland, Rory Kerr, player of the 1998 Dubai Tournament, and Stu Forster, capped 19 times for the All Blacks.

Anti-Assassins

Another invitational team, the Anti-Assassins, was captained by Mark Appleson, a former Scotland sevens international, and featured several young England players, presumably en route to playing for England.  Based on early results, they seemed to be the tournament favorites.

Border Reivers

A third side also consisting of top Scottish players, the Border Reivers came in as defending champions and were one of the tournament favorites.

New Orleans

New Orleans has been coming to the tournament for many years, and this year managed to get through Saturday's play unbeaten before losing to the Scots on Sunday.

Atlantis Men

Competing with the National All-Star Championship in Tampa meant that many of Atlantis' top players would be unavailable, but we still managed to field two teams.

Atlantis Men
Atlantis #, Name, Club

526 Bobby Blunt, Old Blues (CA)
493 Jim Brill, Philadelphia-Whitemarsh
383 Ben Bush, New York AC
527 Phil Drury, New York AC
522 Jim Egan, New York AC
523 Paul Enright, New York AC
495 Marc Frey, Philadelphia-Whitemarsh
517 Eric Jaick, Morris
528 Alex Magleby, unattached
134 Greg Schor, Old Blue (NY)

Atlantis (I)
Atlantis (1) lined  up for photo.  Sadly, we don't have the equivalent photo for Atlantis Signes team. No idea why


Atlantis Signes (actually to differentiate the two sides, the organizers arbitrarily called this side "Signes")

387 Rob Balnis, Montauk
394 Doug Brown, KC Blues
267 Al Caravelli, New York AC
529 Clint Erasmus, Fort Lauderdale
402 Jack Foley, Philadelphia-Whitemarsh
524 Kevin Linzey, New York AC
398 Steve Robke, KC Blues
426 Mike Skahan, KC Blues
427 Rick Snow, Orlando
531 Unidentified player borrowed from Border Reivers

Besides the picture of all 3 sides together, we don't seem to have an individual picture of each squad, and the women's squad picture that we have is of low quality

Semifinals

Surprising the experts, both Atlantis' sides went 6-0, in the process defeating defending and four-time champion Border Reivers from Scotland and the Trinidad & Tobago national team.

In the semifinals, unfortunately, both teams lost: Atlantis Signes 13-7 to Rugby Ecosse in which they controlled most of the play, and Atlantis 33-19 to the Anti-Assassins.

Keith O'Connor of Rugby Ecosse commented "You gave us a bit of a scare as you managed to stop our running game. Our whole plan was to keep out of contact situations but you did not allow us to play to our game plane. We changed at half time when we realized we were going to have to fight hard for every ball.  Players like Murray Wallace, Regan Berriman, and Gareth Flockart then used their 15s experience to make sure we won and retained enough ball to see us through."

Doug Brown, with two tries and 22 conversions, led Atlantis scorers with 60 points.  Atlantis' leading try scorers were:

Alex Magleby 9
Rick Snow 9
Bobby Blunt 7
Rob Balnis 6
Paul Enright 5
Clint Erasmus 5

Final

The Anti-Assassins went out to a large lead against the Scots and their victory seemed assured when, with six minutes left, the Scots had a player red-carded. Trailing 36-19 with three minutes and six players left, however, Rugby Ecosse pulled off a miracle to win the championship 38-36.

WOMEN'S DIVISION

The women's bracket featured eight teams: two Yeomen sides from Canada, Atlantis and New Orleans from the US, the Trinidad and Tobago National side, Eastern Grads (Trinidad), plus teams from Venezuela and St. Vincents.

There was no question that the four North American teams were head and shoulders above their Caribbean counterparts. New Orleans featured two former Eagles, Tracy Moens and Krista McFarren, West stalwarts Tania Hahn and Michelle Carrone and guest players Sarah Schooler and Karen Monson.

With many top players competing in the National All Star Championship the same weekend, Atlantis was nevertheless able to field an excellent squad.

505 Helen Bateup, Maryland Stingers
484 Katrinka Blunt, BASH
473 Linda Borgeson, Beantown
532 Leyda Carvajal, ORSU
428 Dana Creager, NOVA
533 Stef Glecos, Penn State
284 Pam Irby, ORSU
534 Monica Phillips, Atlanta
510 Meredith Whalen, Arizona State
535 Jenna White, Ozark Ladies.

The formal picture of our women's team came out poorly, luckily there are others that serve the purpose.


Women's team (lousy)
Atlantis Women prior to 2nd round play


Atlantis and New Orleans thought they were en route to meet in the final, but a tie between Atlantis and Yeomen I sent them against each other in the semifinal.  In a brutal match that went two full overtimes plus injury time, a final Pam Irby try sealed the match for Atlantis.  Other tries were by Moens and Carrone (NO), Creager and Whalen (Atlantis).

Relaxing Between Games

Stephanie Meredith Helen  Al &
            Meredith
Left: Steph, Meredith, Helen // Right: Meredith & Al

Here are a group of the women celebrating after their runners-up performance.

A group of our women with trophy
Here most of women's team with a trophy to celebrate

We repaired to anywhere we could to escape the sun's heat.

Women in the shade   Hanging out
          of the sun
Two hideouts from sun, a) huddled up against wall away and b) under a tent

Following that semifinal, Atlantis never got into gear and the Yeomen garnered a well-deserved victory.

The Atlantis women were judged "The team that added most value to the tournament." The defeats made us determined to come back and do even better.

Leading Atlantis try scorers:
Dana Creager 6
Pam Irby 6
Meredith Whalen 5

Mer in newspaper
T&T Daily Express, 5 Dec 2000: Meredith featured scoring try in the final vs. the Yeomen. It was the only one in a 17-5 loss.


For all the excitement of the games, the tour was made by the off-the-field camaraderie.  Both genders got along fabulously, were joint participants in team meetings, fine sessions, rookie shows, even some practice sessions.  And when party time came and the juice of the barley flowed, even the gender "jabs" were met with friendly restraint (well if you can call Monica Phillips' dumping a Scotsman on his head friendly restraint ... )

Maracas Beach Trip

No rugby trip to Trinidad is complete without a visit to Maracas Beach.  The trip takes us up and down a windy mountain road to a great lookout and then to a beautiful cove in which is located Maracas Beach.  Here are a few pictures from that trip.

Group in back of van   At top of
          lookout
L: the back of the bus on the trip // R: everyone that took the trip at the loookout ready for the final leg

At the beach. There's nothing like relaxing and enjoying a cold Carib at the beach.

Mags relaxing at beach
Mags relaxing at beach


Dress-Length Jerseys.  This was the first time we were using this particular supplier.  We wanted jerseys that would be lighter and tighter than cotton.  What we got wasn't particularly what we were looking for.  Had we been looking for short rugby-shirt style dresses we would have been right on.  Here are the women following our jersey presentation.

Women's jersey
          dresses
After the jersey presentation, the women's team may decide to play in skirts tomorrow! 
Note to supplier: next phase of projec
t calls :)


Rookie Show

Sunday night was rookie show night. As is typical of most rookie shows, the rookies impersonate the veterans.  Alex cracked me up by impersonating me; Bobby Blunt played his wife Katrinka, and ... so it went ...

   Bobby & Alex at rookie show
Katrinka and me, as portrayed by Bobby and Alex

All rookies gather for applause
All rookies gather for applause

Pam Irby Pretends.  We know Pam doesn't drink alcohol, but the thrill of the evening got her to take at least a pretend sip from the trophy.

Pam pretend drinks
Pam pretending to drink from trophy

Vote PNM!

PNM Supporter at
            rally
PNM Supporter at election rally


On Monday evening, after half the team had gone home, the remainder went to the St. James area of Port of Spain, where we ate street food - roti, doubles, jerk pork - and enjoyed a few Carib beers.  We just happened into the middle of a huge political rally for the People's National Movement (PNM) one week prior to T&T's national election, and we joined the party and celebrated.  That evening we enjoyed the spectacular performance of a large steel band whose members were mostly kids in their early teens and younger. (PNM lost a close election but has contested the results on Constitutional grounds.  Can't these countries get their elections right?!)**

** July 2013: Lest it be thought that I was being critical of T&T, or being superior about "these countries," I hasten to note that this was in the middle of the messy recount, court fight, etc., of the 2000 Bush v Gore election in the US, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.  That last sentence was meant to be an ironic comment on our often misplaced sense of superiority: the whole Bush v Gore thing was really ugly and hardly a process to be proud of.

Steel band of kids  with PNM at Smokey & Buntys
Left: Part of an all-youth steel band playing outside of Smokey & Buntys
Right:
With PNM supporters at Smokey and Buntys following the rally

A week after the tour I received an email from one of the tour members that said "I'm back home but not a day goes by that I don't miss all my friends from Trinidad."

That's the kind of tour it was.


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