It was an eventful Saturday at East Clayton Community Park in Clayton, NC as East Carolina University traveled from Greenville, NC for a joint workout with the the Chapel Hill Warriors men’s team and the Clayton Bootleggers. 

ECU arrived in Clayton for a 9:30 AM 7s clinic led by the Clayton Bootleggers flyhalf Nick Russell, a New Zealander who played high-level 7s in his home country.

“We need all the rugby we can get,” said ECU forward Nick Hills. “This tournament next weekend is huge.”

That would be when ECU plays at Elon next Saturday in the third leg of a three-part 7s series for the division II southern conference. They currently sit in 8th place in the conference standings after the first two legs, and only the top eight teams will advance to the conference final tournament, the winner of which secures a place at Nationals. “[Russell] really knows his stuff and helped us tweak some things that we need to work on as a team,” said Hills.

As soon as the 7s clinic ended, Russell, along with his fellow Bootleggers and the opposing Chapel Hill Warriors began warming up for their division III men’s match. The match was one-sided as Chapel Hill was able to seize control by connecting on a myriad of fantastic offloads, many of which led to tries. The Bootleggers were able to score early in the second half, but were not able to keep momentum as Chapel Hill responded quickly with more tries. The final score was 90-5 Chapel Hill. Clayton fell to 2-4 and Chapel Hill improved to 7-0.

Afterward, all three teams got together for a cookout. 

-- Thomas Lamuraglia