New Format For End Of Utah Fall HS 7s Season

Utah Youth Rugby's Round 4 of its HS Fall 7s is undergoing a last-minute change, but thanks to the Utah Warriors Major League Rugby team, it might all work out.

A miscommunication between Utah Youth Rugby and the Regional Athletic Complex, which has hosted the first three rounds of the season, meant that this weekend's planned activities had to be moved. However, with the Utah Warriors stepping in, there's a new plan.

Utah Youth Rugby will now hold a 2020 Fall 7s Championship over three weekends in November. This coming Saturday will be at Burgess Park in Alpine. There every team will play two games in a quarterfinal-semifinal format (with consolation matches for the teams that don't win their quarterfinal). This is for girls and boys.

Then on November 14, the girls will play a championship match and a 3rd-4th match. The 3rd-4th game will be a curtain-raiser for the Warriors Selects vs MPD All-Stars, while the final will be played at halftime of that game. All of that will occur at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman.

And then on November 21 it will be the turn of the boys to finish up, with a 3rd-4th game as a curtain-raiser for the Warriors Selects vs Legacy Rugby Academy, and the final played during the halftime. Those games will also be at Zions Bank Stadium.

This weekend's games will be streamed on Utah Youth Rugby's Youtube Channel and you can see that feed here on GRR's main page also. 

Expanded List Of Teams

Herriman High School boys are back from quarantine and ready to play, and … with their school’s football team out of the playoffs they actually have more players available. So Herriman will field two teams, a Red team and a Gold team. One will be basically the lineup that has been playing all fall and has gone 5-3, while the other will be mostly football players, many of whom are the more experienced players in the Herriman program.

That’s not the only change, however. Remember how through this fall Brighton and Copper Hills have fielded a combined side? Not so now, as the two programs have brought in enough players to play as stand-alone teams. So Brighton will play as Brighton this week, and Copper Hills will play as Copper Hills. While those teams have recruited enough to play on their own, United has recruited enough to play two squads. That’s a good thing as Kearns won’t be there this week.

Still, the growth of players in the boys bracket has expanded the list of teams to eight for Round 4, as opposed to five in Round 3. The teams will be split into pools of four, playing each other in pool play, and then the top team from each pool will play in the final, the 2nd-place teams will face off for this, and so on.

United Girls Grow

For the girls, it’s pretty much the same, although United has expanded into two squads, which will mean that United B can fill in for Kearns/South Davis, which won’t be there. United leads the competition, but has been challenged at times by a tough but sometimes inconsistent Provo team.

Because there are only six teams involved, United A and Provo will get a bye to the semis. As a result, those two teams will also play each other in a friendly game to keep each other sharp.