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)
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 (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.
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
Left:
Steph, Meredith, Helen // Right: Meredith & Al
Here are a group of the women celebrating
after their runners-up performance.
Here most of women's team with
a trophy to celebrate
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
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.
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
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.
After
the jersey presentation, the women's team may decide to play
in skirts tomorrow!
Note to supplier: next phase of project 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 ...
Katrinka and me, as
portrayed by Bobby and Alex
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 pretending to drink from
trophy
Vote PNM!
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.
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.
