Halcyon days return for evening tourney

Like the return of the prodigal son, Far North Roading finally showed up to play in the fifth week (of seven) of the NAKFA Sevens league championship on the Kaitaia College top fields last Wednesday evening.

And they certainly made their presence felt by recording two draws including one against runaway premiership leaders, Eastern, and forcing the heirs to the NAKFA throne to concede their first goal of the season. With four games left, a mathematical chance remains that Eastern can be overtaken on the table but it is highly unlikely.

There was a similar situation in the social grade with Black Rarawa consolidating a six point lead over the rest of the field by recording two more comfortable wins.

The matches were played in ideal early summer conditions which, combined with a much stronger turnout than the previous week, suggested a return of sorts to halcyon days for organisers.

Results, standings and the draw for tomorrow evening’s games are as follows.

RESULTS. Prems, R1: ROTW 0 Eastern 3, KC Crushers 0 Transformers 2, Mavericks 1 The Ballers 1, R2: Far North Roading 2 Kta Women 2, ROTW 1 KC Crushers 0, Transformers 2 The Ballers 0, R3: Kta Women 3 Mavericks 0, Far North Roading 1 Eastern 1.

Social, R1: NZ Destroyers 3 Dream Team 2, JNL Tri Hards 2 Red Rarawa 2, Black Rarawa 5 Kta Hooners 0, R2: UP&GO’s 3 Invisible Men* 0, Destroyers 3 TriHards 0, Red Rarawa 2 Hooners 2, R3: Invisible Men 0 Black Rarawa 3, with UP&GO’s vs Dream Team not advised.

STANDINGS. Prems: Eastern (goals for/ against 34/1) 30 points, Transformers (29/5) 24, Rest of the World (19/6) 22, KC Crushers (11/15) 13, The Ballers (9/23) 10, Kaitaia Women (11/25) 7, Mavericks (4/28) 5, Far North Roading (3/27) 2; Social: Black Rarawa (44/5) 27, NZ Destroyers (23/15) 22, JNL Tri Hards (25/12) 19, Red Rarawa (14/17) 16, KC Hooners (20/17) 13, Dream Team (14/22) 7, UP&GO’s (12/31) 6, Invisible Men (0/32) 0.

DRAW tomorrow night, week 6/7, Premiership, R1 at 6.15pm: Transformers vs Eastern, Crushers vs Ballers, Roading vs Mavericks, R2 at 6.45pm: Kta Women vs Eastern, Transformers vs FNR, Ballers vs ROTW, R3 at 7.15pm: Women vs ROTW, Ballers vs Crushers.

Social, 6.45pm: Red Rarawa vs Dream Team, JTri Hards vs Hooners, UP&GOs vs Black Rarawa, 6.45pm: Invisible Men* vs Dream Team, Red Rarawa vs UP&GOs, Hooners vs Destroyers, 7.15pm: Invisible Men* vs Destroyers, Black Rarawa vs Tri Hards

* indicates the team will default so a 3-nil win will be awarded to opposition and a friendly game organised. As always, teams are reminded to audit their own results and standings as organisers cannot be relied on to be accurate.

Tomorrow night is the penultimate round of the league competitions which will be completed the following Wednesday followed by the NAKFA Cup finals likely to be held on Saturday, December 15.

(1) Fiordland (2) 1963 (3) No (4) Baseball (5) Bay of Plenty (6) Visitors (7) Brisbane (8) Warsaw (9) George Gershwin (10) True.

7-10 Excellent! 5-6 Very good. 1-4 Room for improvement.