A Word From Our Coach: More From Andy Katoa

Full disclosure: I met Coach Andy via Twitter. We were favoriting and retweeting all things rugby back and forth, then progressed to direct messages, then emails and actual phone calls to discuss the world of rugby 7s, of training, coaching and developing athletes, of observations of the iRB Sevens and more. Thank goodness for social media!

Andy has worked with several of the players you'll see on the pitch this weekend at Gold Coast 7s. He has spent significant time in player development and identifying talent as an assistant at the High School All American level with Salty Thompson, in coaching the highly regarded University of Arizona rugby 7s team that produced recent Eagles Peter Tiberio, Brett Thompson and Ryan Matyas, and as the manager for the USA 7s men's team.

 He was highly involved in getting Carlin Isles to crossover into rugby 7s - it's worth noting that Andy is somewhat of a crossover himself having played collegiate football and being drafted by the San Diego Chargers in 1991. Andy coached Isles at the club level to prepare him for his Eagles 7s contract, working on development when Isles first stepped on the pitch with the Gentlemen of Aspen. The likes of Mike Palefau, Maka Unufe, Leonard Peters and Pila Taufa are former/current Eagles whom have flourished under Andy's guidance. Andy is additionally veteran of a few rugby 7s touring sides and led the Gentlemen of Aspen to a USA Rugby Club 7s National Championship in 2008.

 Grantland's Video: The Fastest Man In Rugby Carlin Isles

 features Coach Andy and his role in developing Isles for the Eagles

This summer Andy recommended several athletes for our Stars program and assisted with some of our funding work for the Calgary Stampede 7s tour. As we spent more and more time discussing the direction and potential of the Stars program, I threw it out that he should join us on a tour as a guest coach. I was a little shocked and beyond thrilled that he said yes not just to our Australia tour but for Tobago 7s and beyond. "Liz, I want to be your Stars men's coach," still echoes in my mind; his commitment becomes even more meaningful given that he was recently named the  Head Coach for the Tonga 7s.

Andy led a the Tonga team into the Oceania 7s tournament last week where he debuted two 19 year olds in the flyhalf and center positions after only having two weeks to evaluate talent and make selections. The young team, which included Star player Eddie Paea, had its trials. Tonga drew a difficult pool of Australia, Samoa and New Caledonia yet still advanced to the Cup Quarterfinals and eventually place 6th. Their appearance in the Plate Final  earned Tonga a spot at Hong Kong 7s.

Eddie commented on Andy's amazing knowledge of the game and on how much the players appreciated his coaching. Andy reported, "It's been a great experience so far with these kids...loads of talent here and in Tonga. I've been given clearance to full access of kids in NZ and Australia. It will make Tonga that much better." 



Here's a quick message from Coach Andy:

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to say hello and that I'm really looking forward to spending time with the Stars 7s in Australia. We know that Liz has been working hard on putting together a mixture of young talent for CCS 7s, soI am really excited to see how we will be able to come together as team and focus on the task at hand.

The focus is for us to do the simple things real well. TACKLE, support, pass, catch, run. We will have about 5 solid days to work out our points of play. With everyone coming in well-conditioned we will be able to execute the basic things at an accelerated pace. This will make things a lot easier on all of us.

Coach Orene and I are really excited to be with the Stars and know the experience will benefit us all. Everyone keep up the hard work and keep the fitness up. We'll see you all soon.

Thank you,

Andy

Counting this as Drew Brees, Carlin Isles and Darren Sproles 

wishing Stars Rugby 7s good luck!

Women's Old Blue 7s

Last year at 7s Nationals my Chicago Lions Women's team had the good fortune to stay at the same hotel as the New York Old Blue Men's 7s side. They kindly leant us an inflated rugby ball for a quick training session the Friday before the tournament (we wanted to perfect some lineout lifts with fairly new jumpers and also needed to just move around after a 5am road trip from Chicago to Pittsburgh). Fast forward a few months later and all the sudden @WOldBlueRFC is following me on twitter and more conversations began.

That men's team placed 3rd at Nationals last summer, beating our Lions men in the 3rd/4th place game, and they have a long standing tradition of high performance. Several of their players represented the USA as part of the New York City 7s side at the World Club 7s Championships at Twickenham last summer. Several more have continued to play at a very high level with the Northeast ODA program. It is fairly thrilling that they have committed to introducing a women's side and are already planning and recruiting such that it should equal the men's side in terms of success. 

As it became evident that their commitment to developing the women's 7s game is on par with our Stars mission, I asked Coach Billy Nicholas to share some information on the program and he quickly responded:

Old Blue RFC Men’s team has experienced five decades of success in rugby 15s and 7s and has started a Women’s 7s team which be competing in this upcoming women’s sevens summer season. 

The Old Blue Men’s 7s program has placed many players on the Eagles 7s team, has won nearly every 7s tournament it has entered, won two national championships and is a perennial men’s club 7s finalist.  Old Blue RFC intends to bring the same 7s structure that has been successful for the Old Blue men to our new women’s 7s program. The team will have access to great training facilities and will operate under an elite team structure of practice and a full summer tournament schedule. Old Blue Women’s 7s will be entering 2 teams in each tournament this summer. 

We expect to attract but not limited to, college-aged players and recent college graduates. We believe there is a group of young players with huge potential that has yet to be fully tapped into. We want to enable up and coming players the chance to be surrounded by a competitive environment of teammates, facilities and coaches with experience select side rugby and cultivating players talent for advancement in the USA and Olympic 7s pools.

We want to give interested players a chance to come back each summer and cultivate their skills with players from across the country. They may compete against one another during the year but will get a chance to come together each summer. This team will focus on player development and player advancement at local/national and international sides. We have a great National program and our team is designed to continue to support the success of our National team.

If you have an interest in spending a few months in one of the greatest cities in the world and playing elite level 7’s in an competitive environment, then this should be a club at the top of both of those lists. Stay tuned for more upcoming announcements including player profiles, practice and tournament information. 

Players who are interested should contact Old Blue at WoldBLUErfc@gmail.com

 

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