Samurai International won the 2008 Amsterdam Sevens, the fourth year in a row they have won the tournament, something never achieved before in the 37 year history of the tournament. This was possibly their best performance yet because, by general consensus, this was the strongest set of teams ever assembled. Samurai St. Georges Ladies won the Amsterdam Ladies Sevens to complete a 2008 double for Samurai. The clean sweep was prevented by Wooden Spoon, who retained their Veterans 10s title.
Samurai International were the pre-tournament favourites as they were being coached by South Africa 7s coach Paul Treu and many of the players on show are expected to feature in the IRB 7s tournaments at Twickenham and Murrayfield. However, they did not look unbeatable. Kooga Wailers ran them very close in the quarter finals where they narrowly lost out 12-7. The message was clear. Samurai International were beatable but you needed to “get into them”. Stoned Pups got into them in the semi-finals but were quickly down to 6 players as an early tackle was judged to be too high, to the disbelief of the partisan crowd, and the resulting yellow card consigned the offender to the sin bin for 2 minutes. Stoned Pups never caught up and lost out 35-0. In the final the opponents were Samurai Barracudas. There were rumours that the Barracudas team were originally due to be the Samurai International team but were displaced by the Bokke imports and were determined to show Samurai boss Terry Sands the error of his ways. Fielding a number of English and Welsh 7s internationals, the way in which they got into the Samurai International players certainly showed that they felt they had a chance. However, Samurai Barracudas were always playing catch-up and eventually lost out 31-19.
Susies Christina Noble were the other semi-finalists, losing out 24-14 to Samurai Barracudas. In the quarter finals there were some very close games, in addition to the Samurai International, Kooga Wailers 12-7 match, Adidas Corso Marauders were narrowly beaten 24-21 by Susies and Rugby Ecosse from Scotland lost 31-26 to Stoned Pups. Only Samurai Barracudas won by more than a single score in the quarter finals, beating Irish Exiles DHL 7s 36-7. The competition was so tough that many teams who would have expected to make the quarter finals any other year crashed out in the Sunday morning pools. Scufflers, Marauders, Millfield Old Boys, Plume of Feathers, Mel’s Exiles, Georgian Knights, the Georgian national team and Witte Raven, the Dutch national team who were the only Dutch side to make it into the top Silver Pier tournament. Notable performances included Scorpion, a German development squad under the German 7s manager Achim Behring-Scheil who are the first German side to reach the Silver Pier and Grande Milano for Chicken who made the Silver Pier after many years of trying.
In the Heineken Boot competition there was a much stronger Dutch representation, indeed one of the Sunday morning pools was all Dutch with AAC, Amstelveen and DSR-C playing each other for a semi-final place. AAC got the semi final place but they were the only Dutch club to make the semi finals. National Champions Dukes lost out to the Catalunya Sevens team. In the semi finals AAC beat French side Les Cadets d’Berge from Bordeaux 15-12 in a very close match whilst Rugby Dubai beat the Catalunya Seven 24-10. In the final, which went into extra time and a “Golden Score,” Rugby Dubai beat AAC 17-12.
In the Integer Plate final London side The Templars beat Czech national champions Tatra Smichov 21-17 in the final after beating the Czech national side in the semi-final.
The Ladies tournament was probably one of the highest quality fields in the world this year. Pre-tournament favourites Aotearoa Maori Women’s Sevens won the Hong Kong 7s six years on the trot, this years Hong Kong 7s winners and runners up USA and Canada were there, as were Samurai St Georges Ladies with many England Internationals and many more top teams. The draw for the Sunday morning pools was kind to the USA as Aotearoa Maori Women’s Sevens, Canada and Samurai St Georges Ladies were all drawn in the same pool where Canada was the team that failed to make the semi-final. In the pool matches Aotearoa Maori Women’s 7s beat Samurai St Georges Ladies 19-7.
In the semi finals Aotearoa Maori Women’s 7s overwhelmed the Brazil Gold national side 48–0. Samurai St Georges Ladies had a much tighter game, beating the USA 14-5. In the final Samurai St Georges Ladies overturned the result of the morning pool match to run out comfortable winners 24-5.
The Veterans 10s final was a repeat of the 2007 final with Wooden Spoon Vets again beating Corso Marauders Vets, this time 28-7. Wooden Spoon Vets had a very close semi-final against Millfield Old Boys Vets 19-12 and the semi final victory of Corso Marauders Vets over Dutch Rugby Vets was much closer than the 31-7 score line would suggest.
Many thanks to all of the teams who made it to the tournament. Special mention to the Norwegian Raiderettes who lost half of their team because of an airport strike in Norway but competed with some borrowed players. Despite awful weather on Saturday everyone had a good time and it looks like naked table surfing is now a tradition.
For the statisticians, we had 60 Men’s teams, 20 Ladies teams and 9 Veterans teams, 265 games on 9 pitches with 34 referees.