Auckland seeded sixth

Press, 27 February 1981, Page 24

Auckland seeded sixth

NZPA Hong Kong Auckland has been seeded sixth of the 20 teams taking part in next, month’s international seven-a-side rugby tournament in Hong Kong. The organisers have ranked last year’s winner, Fiji, as the top team and then rate, in order, the Scottish Co-optiniists, the British Barbarians, Australia, the Argentinian Pumas, Auckland, Japan and South Korea.

The Barbarians and the Pumas will be taking part in the competition for the first time.

At the five previous seven-a-side tournaments in Hong Kong, the team representing - New Zealand has never failed to reach at least the semi-finals. Cantabrians won the initial tournament in 1976 and Marlborough and Manawatu. were the beaten finalists in 1977 and 1978 respectively.

Manawatu, again • representing New Zealand, lost in the semi-finals at the 1979 and 1980 tournaments. This year’s tournament, to be played: on March 28 and 29, has been divided . into four groups of five teams. The top four teams have been placed in separate groups, and the other . four seeds — including Auckland — will be drawn so that each group- has two of the eight seeds. The draw will be made next week.

Each group will play a round-robin (four games each), the top two going through to the quarter-finals of the championships. The third and fourth teams will take part in the plate event and the bottom team in each group will be eliminated from the tournament.