Success of inaugural Sevens carnival opens up expansion chances for future | Photos

After initially hoping for at least ten teams, 34 from as far away as Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney converged on Conolly Park on Saturday to compete for $15,000 in prizemoney across men's and women's divisions.

The carnival is the brainchild of Wagga City Rugby Club, and co-organiser Dan Ribot said the response was encouraging and stressful at the same time.

He said they would need access to more venues to accommodate more teams if the carnival is played again next year.

"We'll be having a meeting this week to go over the good, bad and the ugly, and see how we can improve it and make it a bit easier for everyone," he said.

"We're hopeful it will be a rolling event, and hope we can pick up more sponsors and more support.

"We had 34 teams and I don't think you'd want to have any more than that unless we can find another field, but we might have access to one next year.

"To be honest I wanted somewhere between 10 and 20 and we ended up with 34. It's not only surprising, but nerve wracking.

"We've had pretty high praise from teams who go to a lot of the bigger sevens events around the country. Given it was our first attempt at running a tournament, we're pretty happy."

OTHER NEWS

Ribot said the size of the event placed a big workload on club members and hopes to expand that in coming years.

"We knew from the interest in the local community and from contacts we'd touched base with outside of Wagga we'd be in double figures (for teams). But it far exceeded expectations," he said.

"There was a core group from the club helping out that were basically there from 6.30am to about 8.30pm.

"It's a huge day. If we can double the number helping, everything would be much easier."

The fact February is generally a quiet time for local sport means the carnival has a chance to take advantage of sports-starved players and spectators.

"It could become a big event, not just for local rugby but for Wagga," he said.

"It's another event to showcase Wagga as a town. A lot of people from out of town said they'd never been here before."

The men's cup final was won by Sydney team Kacau Barbas over Canberra-based Gungahlin Eagles 27-5, while Southern Districts dominated Bathurst 44-0 in the women's cup decider.

Other division winners included Melbourne Rugby (men's shield), Highlanders Brothers (men's plate), and Blackettes (women's plate).

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: