The girls from Savaii, Itu o Tane Under-18 girls, thrashed Wesley College 34 - 5 in the finals of the secondary school sevens competition, while Palalaua College were crowned boys champs after a nail-biting 14-12 win against Leulumoega Fou College.

Itu o Tane College captain, Upu Talavini said she was very emotional looking back at the heavy training they had to endure as they prepared for this tournament. According to Upu, they took the lessons from the 15 aside tournament and used them for their comeback. 

“We knew we screwed up in the 15 aside against Wesley, so we went back, we evaluated and look at areas we needed to work on. Now, we got to be in the final against them again, we wanted to prove ourselves, and we did it. No other words to describe the mood and the feeling right now, just happy and grateful to God for the strength, our principal for pushing us to our limits every day, our supporters, family, but most of all my team,” she said in tears.

“This win is for our big island. Looking back, I can say with pride that all the sweat and hard work have paid off. We trained in the morning at five, then we went to our classes. After school, we have other trainings. We mainly focused on our fitness level.”

Upu Talavini was also named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament. She was also selected before to be part of the Manu Sina 7s wider training squad. The dream of being a Manu Sina is still there for Upu. 

For Palalaua College Under 18 boys, Johnny Kuresa said that the challenge they had was not being able to have a camp for the team to bond. 

“It was a bit challenging because we did not have a camp, as some of our players are from other villages, so we needed to have that team bond to strengthen our team. Unfortunately, we couldn’t camp due to financial issues,” he said.

“But since some of us also play for the National Provincial Championship, those trainings have benefitted us in a way. We were able to learn from our old boys who have been playing rugby. But today’s results, glory all goes back to God. I am very proud of the boys and how they performed today. It was a tough match but we did it.”