In a rather unpredictable Ra Puriri Memorial Invitational, teams from Utah and Arizona get some important early-season runouts.
Due to the weather, all games were played on the Snow Canyon High School football field, but that didn’t stop the rugby from being high-quality.
It was a highly competitive day, too, with several teams rotating players but also showing their potential as contenders.
The scores below might surprise some but many teams put on new players to get them some game time.
That was the purpose. "In many of the games, teams would play their starters and returning players in the first half, then allow their younger and newer boys to take the field during the second half," said Tournament Director Mikaera Puriri. "Some teams even loaned players to teams with low numbers. Every boy that came this weekend was given the chance to play. And as Invitational Director, that made my heart full because all I wanted was for this to be about the boys, and it was."
Perhaps the best game of the weekend was Te Mana vs East HS. East tends to come to the Invitational a little under-cooked and had not won a game in all three previous appearances. This time, however, they beat United 44-15 and then Red Mountain 43-17.
They were playing well together and their experience meant they were perhaps a little more cohesive this year.
Te Mana, on the other hand, is rebuilding a little, but had played some games at the Dennis Storer Classic and had also played Red Mountain.
Te Mana opened their weekend with a victory over Mountain Ridge, but then suffered a close loss to Olympus. Going into the match, East elected to rest a majority of their starters and let a lot of their younger and newer players take the field instead.
