Get real - sevens heaven is in Wellington

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I’m not sure whether the headline in the Saturday Dominion Post reflected a genuine threat to Wellingtons hold on the New Zealand leg of the IRB Sevens, or a nice juicy newspaper selling bit of scaremongering.

As part of its excellent coverage of the Sevens, the Dom-Post revealed that Wellington will have to reapply to continue hosting the event, as its license has run out, with Auckland and Dunedin expressing interest.

The natural response is to think “Why would you want to change something that is so good, so successful?”

This weekend’s tournament was one of the best in my experience, helped no end by two brilliantly fine days.

Once again the array of costumes and fancy dress was staggering, and while there were plenty of staggering people too, there didn’t seem to be much trouble in the crowd, which was boisterous but happy. It was better than last year, when there were a few too many drunken kids.

The beauty of Wellington as host city is that the Stadium is perfect for such an event. The reason the seats are only rarely fully occupied is because people love heading down to the concourse to meet friends or just do a lap, meet old friends, make new ones and check out the other costumes.

It‘s also in a great location, with people able to pour out of the stadium for the walk either to the waterfront or Courtenay Place or somewhere along the way.

Sorry, but you’d never be able to do that at Eden Park. It’s too far from the city, and the residents would put up all sorts of impediments, so they might as well forget it right now.

Dunedin I feel slightly different about.

It’s great they’re getting a new roofed stadium, and I believe they should be rewarded for their investment with more regular test matches, especially in the depths of June and July. Perhaps they could be given one Sevens tournament to celebrate the new stadium, but frankly I just don’t see why Wellington should miss out after doing such a great job.

I get the feeling the NZRU just has to be seen to be going through a democratic and open process that at least gives other parties the chance to show what they could offer.

One slightly jarring note was the “special” costs associated with the weekend.

Karl Te Nana and I went to breakfast on Saturday morning at one café that had somehow managed to turn the previous Governments 15% public holiday surcharge into 20%. If owners have to pay their staff an extra 15%, then I guess it’s only fair that that cost gets passed onto the customer, but to stick another 5% on top smacked of greedy opportunism.

That’s the sort of thing that’s got me really worried about next years World Cup, with too many people seemingly consumed with how much they can fleece off our visitors.

As for the tournament itself, the sevens rugby was of a high standard…not much in the way of upsets but some really great rugby, especially from Fiji.

New Zealand’s winning run came to a shuddering halt in the face of an inspired Samoan team.

There were some disappointing contributions from some of the more long serving members of the side, and it could be that one or two have started taking their place for granted.

Having said that I wouldn’t be surprised to see them bounce back into winning form in Las Vegas, after the inevitable rocket from coach Gordon Tietjens.

In the meantime let’s just give Samoa the credit for a superbly executed win in that semi. It’s just a shame for them that Lolo Lui was suspended from the final because of a nasty tackle on one of the New Zealand players. The decision was justified, but Lui to me might well have been a winning difference had he played in the decider.

* ReUnion is back Tuesday night with a full wrap of the Sevens and a detailed preview of the Super14.

Article By: Tony Johnson