July 14, 2012: Atlantis in 2012 Victoria
International Sevens
(Atlantis tournament #137)
Emil Signes
JUNE 19, 2013 (rev. September 24, 2013)
Note of June 2013: I was
honored to be able to work with so many up-and-coming
international players as well as top-flight coaches at this
event.
Atlantis at Victoria
International Sevens, July 14, 2012
Top, L to R: Tony Pacheco, Brett
Willis, Ryan Roundy, Brett Thompson, Don Pati,
Shaun Davies, Tyler Harrison, Alex Magleby, John Tyler,
Tim Higgins
Bottom, L to R: Emil Signes, Andrew
Nelson, Matty Harris, Carlin Isles, Jack Halalilo, Marcus
Satavu, Jeremy Nash
I received a call in June from Doug
Tate, organizer of the Victoria International Sevens, asking if
Atlantis would be available. Realizing the quality of this
tournament, I in turn called Alex Magleby to see if he was
interested in putting together some of his promising players to
play as Atlantis at the event. He was, and for me it was a
wonderful experience. Two of our players had
international experience beforehand, and two more have
represented the US since that tournament. (As of August 2013, three:)
The squad consisted of
Players: Atlantis Number, Name, Club
901 Shaun Davies, BYU
902 Jack Halalilo, East Palo Alto Bulldogs
903 Matty Harris, Lindenwood U.
904 Tyler Harrison, Olympic Club
905 Carlin Isles, Gentlemen of Aspen
906 Andrew Nelson, Central Washington
907 Don Pati, U. Utah
908 Ryan Roundy, BYU
909 Marcus Satavu, Panama City Beach
910 Brett Thompson, U of Arizona
911 Brett Willis, USA Rugby
Staff: Tim Higgins was the trainer. The rest of us were
sharing coaching, managerial, video, etc. work
Atlantis Staff Number, Name
1 Emil Signes
35 John Tyler
91 Alex Magleby
92 Tony Pacheco
93 Tim Higgins (trainer)
94 Jeremy Nash
We met in Seattle on Tuesday and took the Clipper to
Victoria.
Left: About to board the Victoria Clipper
// Right: Tim eats, Matty sleeps
Left: Victoria as we arrive // Right: Carlin steps off
the Clipper
We stayed at the University of Victoria campus, a nice rural
ambience, with the city of Victoria just a couple minutes away.
Left: At the nice quiet UVic campus, a deer
rests just outside our dorm // Right: Coaches' night out in
town
Left: Mags runs practice // Right: we were
lucky to have a couple of scrimmages against teams in
other brackets
Finally, after three days of productive practices, we got to the
day we were waiting for: game day! It was a really tough bracket!
Atlantis 25 South Seas 10. South Seas was an
invitational team of mostly Pacific islanders. Carlin Isles,
at the time a complete unknown outside the track world, had a hat
trick in his first game of an international tournament. And just
weeks after his first rugby practice.
Brett Thompson had the other two scores, both excellent support
tries.
Here is Carlin Isles en route to his first try
in an international tournament.
CLICK ON FIGURE to see all five of our tries in
this game
Atlantis 27 British Columbia 7. This was easily our
best performance of the day as we completely dominated this game
against Canada's best provincial team. Carlin ran around
their team twice for tries. Shaun Davies, Brett Thompson and
Jack Halalilo scored the other three tries.
Left: Brett Thompson wins LO
vs. Cayman Islands // Right: We win ruck vs. British
Columbia
CLICK on left image to see all our tries in the
Cayman game
CLICK on right image to see 4 of our tries in the BC game
(missed the first one)
Time to relax. Five games in a day is a lot, but
there's still time to relax. Some of our players hit the
locker room briefly in between games.
Left: Carlin and Don get in a catnap // Right:
Brett Thompson relaxing between games
SF: Atlantis 17 Maple Leafs 19. This was a game we
would have loved to have back. (Would still love to have
back.) Maple Leafs was a shadow Canada team: a mixture of
national level players, ex-, current and projected future
internationals.
With no time left, we led the Maple Leafs 17-14 and it was our
scrum. Our SH was tackled out of the ball, Maple Leafs
recovered and, after a long spell, scored the winning try.
It was devastating.
Atlantis 12 Old Puget Sound Beach 15. I
suppose this is making excuses about the 3rd place game, but we
were kind of listless, possibly due to still being down from the
semifinal match. We were facing the ageless wizard Waisale
Serevi, who scored a try against us. (I was in Hong Kong in 1989
when 19-year old Serevi took the sevens world by storm for the
first time. Let's see; that's 23 years ago.) Our tries were
by Matty Harris and Brett Willis.
Left: Carlin Isles in support of Don Pati. Don
finished the try // Right: Jack Halalilo wins KO in the air
vs. OPSB.
CLICK on left image to see our tries vs. Maple Leafs
CLICK on right image to see our tries vs. OPSB
I had a wonderful time this week; although I'm around great
athletes every time Atlantis plays, it was particularly pleasant
to have an opportunity to work with so many players that had been
on or were about to make the international stage: Ryan Roundy had
already played for the USA 7s team and Shaun Davies for USA
15s. Within a couple of months both Carlin Isles and Brett
Thompson would represent the US in sevens. In
August 2013 Jack Halalilo got to represent the US 7s
team as well.
And it was great to reconnect with
Mags, who had played for Atlantis a dozen years earlier. Atlantis to T&T 2000
