The Bryan Craies 20/20 Rugby tournament held at College Rifles was a good introduction for the coming season for these top four teams in 2015.
The tournament went to the rule book to find a winner but was played in good spirits. We had the College Rifles Bombers and the Takapuna Bombers who had done the hard work with weighing in under 86 kg. Ponsonby and Waitakere had a few over the weight between them. Waitakere decided to default all games but treat the tournament as a training run and one player cost Ponsonby the title.
The games were low scoring, Takapuna defeated College Rifles 17-14 in the last play of the game, and Ponsonby also defeated College Rifles 17-5.
The other defaulted games were played with no score registered but the standard of rugby was high and good numbers in the crowd.
After the fixtures we had the sprint race to find ‘quickest of the tournament.’ Dane Rua of College Rifles ran the 100 metres in 11.8 seconds with ball in hand. We understand that was back to back victories as he was last year’s champ.
Best try: Sean Campbell (Takapuna)
Player of the tournament: Tom Kippenberger (College Rifles)
Tournament team, named by Richard Inglis, Auckland U85kg coach:
Kash Ngature, Sam Knowles (Waitakere), Scott Scherer (Takapuna), Jono Gould (College Rifles), Josh van Veen (Takapuna), Nick Thompson (Ponsonby), Tom Kippenberger (College Rifles), Jamie McLagen (Ponsonby), Jared Soar (Takapuna), Damien Taylor (Takapuna), Scott Thomson (College Rifles), Sean Campbell (Takapuna), Dane Rua (College Rifles), Ash Robinson (Ponsonby)
Bryan Craies Cup champions 2015: Takapuna Bombers (King of the Middleweights)
I would just to thank all the teams, coaches and managers, that took part, also College Rifles Rugby Club for hosting this event, Auckland referees for their time, Chris Tautiaga, director of senior rugby at College Rifles, and Kevin Reilly, president of College Rifles, for their work behind the scenes.
Tournament day helpers: Deano Allnutt, Richard Inglis, Roger ‘Mad Dog’ Moore
Sponsors – Monty’s Promotions, Husqvarna
Auckland Rugby Union, North Harbour Rugby Union, NZ Barbarians RFC for their support.
We hope to continue the Bryan Craies Cup 2016 with a new format… the winning team in 2015 will go into the 2016 tournament as favourites, with one team per union which includes the Waikato U85kg club champions.
All the best to all the U85kg teams in 2015, train hard and drive safe.
Deano Allnutt
Bryan Craies 20/20 tournament controller
NZ Barbarians Rugby Club U85kg Rugby
