With Southern California taking a bit of a week off due to the LA Sevens, and North Carolina gearing up now for their club season with the Carolina Ruggerfest this coming weekend, many of the top-ranked teams were idle.
We do see a few of those ranked in the teens move up, and that's natural as they play and beat good opponents—Okapi won well over Gibbons, SFGG beat a tough Wolverines side, and Vienna won big over a major rival in the Raleigh Redhawks.
The Ra Puriri Tournament is a tough one to use for the rankings because teams rotate players and these are shortened games. Which result is most important to the team in question? East HS looked really good (and will be rewarded in the School-Team rankings), but Te Mana beat them. However Te Mana lost to Olympus, who otherwise struggled. United lost competitively to East, lost big to Mountain Ridge, and lost by three to Herriman. So which is it? We decided that United should move down, but we were tempted to move them down into the 40s. Instead, they drop just below Te Mana and we wait for regular-season results to clarify.
Tournament play also provides more questions than answers for War Eagle in a meeting in Tennessee. They end up not moving at all. Kansas City comes into the Top 50 and really here a tournament helps us. We see that the Jr. Blues have the wherewithal to succeed in a tournament format (despite being without some key players) and that's what we needed to get them back in the Top 50. Now it's up to full-length game results.
