Seven Grade 11 rugby players from Earl Marriott Secondary hit the jackpot earlier this month, after being selected to take part in an invitational event next month in Las Vegas.
The exhibition tournament runs alongside the prestigious USA Sevens Rugby Festival.
The seven Mariners – Quinton Willms, Ian McMaster, Joey Kenville, Deon Clifford, Bobby Devaney, Robert Jones and Sean Einerson – will play for the British Columbia Elite Youth Sevens team, which will face-off against some of the best young seven-a-side teams from Canada and the United States.
Another former Earl Marriott student, Keaton Styles, will also be at Las Vegas’s Sam Boyd Stadium as member of Canada’s men’s sevens team, which will tackle top teams from across the world. The tournament runs Feb. 12-13.
“It’s just fantastic for the guys to be a part of something like this,” said Earl Marriott rugby coach Adam Roberts, who will have all seven players on his senior boys team this spring.
“It’s just a huge, huge tournament – we’re talking playing in front of 20,000 people in the stadium… the guys can’t wait. I know they’re all just jacked right up.”
In addition to their own games over the two-day tournament, the B.C. squad will also have plenty of time to take in the USA Sevens as spectators, which is where Styles and his Canadian mates will battle teams from Fiji, England, New Zealand and Wales.
“They’ll be totally immersed in a rugby culture,” Roberts said.
“They all look up to Keaton so they will get to see him playing against the best in the world.”
The seven players were chosen by B.C. head coach Shane Thompson after a handful of identification camps throughout the province last year. From there, 37 players were invited to an elite selection camp in Victoria from Jan. 7-9, where finally decisions on the team were made.
“It’s amazing how quickly these players are picking up the technical aspects of rugby sevens, and I’ve been really impressed with their growth from camp to camp,” said Thompson in a release.
The selection process was nothing new for the Peninsula players, all of whom have provincial experience in 15-a-side rugby. Still, the Vegas event will be “the most international” tournament any of them have participated in, Roberts said.
“They’ve played in some big tournaments, some big games, but they haven’t been a part of something quite like this.”
Team B.C.’s inclusion in the tournament, Roberts said, has much to do with the addition of seven-a-side rugby to the Summer Olympics starting in 2016. The lure of the Olympics has brought forth more funding for provincial and national sides, which, in turn, allows teams to take part in more events.
And despite the high level of talent expected in Las Vegas, Roberts was confident his bunch – and the rest of Team B.C. – would handle themselves well.
“I think they’ll do alright, for sure,” he said. “That’s the thing about sevens rugby. You just have to have your best seven guys out there. It’s not 11 or 15 or whatever, it’s just seven.
“So maybe at other levels, they might not have (the depth), but I think they can match up with seven.”
With more open field than the typical rugby match, sevens rugby also caters to faster teams, not necessarily the bruisers – something Roberts said will also likely benefit B.C.’s squad, as well as Styles’ national team.
