Coach happy with 7s effort

By HUXLEY LOVAI
THE Marist rugby 7s tournament held in Suva, Fiji over the weekend saw the MTSL Papua New Guinea Pukpuks top their pool to finish in the top 20 teams of the cup eliminations rounds.
But close losses mainly due to ill-discipline (two yellow cards) cost the side dearly, halting further progress in the tournament.
The 2018 edition of the Marist 7s saw 64 teams including PNG’s Pukpuks and the Highlands team.
Pukpuks coach Douglas Guise told The National that the Marist 7s provided the ideal platform for the team to iron out some issues that were picked up during the Sydney and Hamilton competitions.
“We used this competition to fix up the little things like set pieces where we won 80 per cent of our lineouts and would say close to over 90 per cent of our kick off receptions and contested well and won 70 per cent of our own kick offs,” Guise said.
“These were the main things we had to work on and as the scorelines suggest our defence once again was pretty stable against some quality attacking teams.
“The guys came out of the tournament injury free and getting some good stats on what we were there to work on,” the former Pukpuk said.
“Our main disappointments again was clearly not taking our opportunities.
“Again in the cup elimination games we dominated both and created enough opportunities but didn’t really finish them off.
“Our standout players over the weekend were Hensley Peter, Joseph Mocke and Dean Manale,” Guise said. He said that the Marist 7s provided the ideal lead up to the Hong Kong 7s (April 6-8) giving the Pukpuks the opportunity to test themselves against some of the best sevens talent in the region.
The Pukpuks will compete at the World Series qualifying tournament which is part of the main HSBC Hong Kong 7s but will involve other tier two teams such as Tonga, Uganda and Hong Kong.
The Pukpuks players and management thanked their naming rights sponsor Melanesian Trustee Services Limited for making their trip possible.
Results: Pool fixtures – PNG 14 Fiji Army 10, PNG 25 Naivakacoa 5, PNG 22 Ratu Filse 7; Elimination round – Vuvu Blues 17 PNG 7, Taveuni 12 PNG 0.