Teams from Utah as well as Arizona and Hawai’i converged on St. Georgia in Southern Utah to play the Puriri Memorial Invitational over the weekend.

The tournament has for many years been played in honor of Ra Puriri, the father of longtime Utah Youth Rugby coaches Michael and Colin Puriri, and a mentor to many players and coaches in the state. However, in December Michael died suddenly while at work and so the tournament was renamed to honor both of them. A special commemoration in honor of Michael with Michael’s family, including wife Kristina, in attendance, highlighted the second day.

(More on that in another post.)

Michael and Kristina Puriri split their time between Hawai’i and Utah and the presence of Kahuku at the tournament was a direct result of the respect with which Hawaiian rugby players and coaches held for them.

Michael’s son Mikaera, ran the tournament and paid tribute to his father during the commemoration.

Friday

Friday afternoon was fairly warm and clear which made for a great day to play rugby. The teams involved brought as full a squad as they could and so, as is usually the case, this was a tournament where games involved lineups of varying experience.

All that is to say, not every result was 1sts vs 1sts.

Tribal vs Olympus

Tribal is the new name for the St. George-based team formerly known as Te Mana. With a slightly changed coaching setup Tribal has solid numbers and looked good against a talented Olympus team.

Tribal punished Olympus offside penalties to score through the forwards, and then got a somewhat fortuitous try when a kick on-the-run from Olympus fullback Jack Reed went straight to a Tribal player who took it in.

With Asher Stoddard running the attack smartly at flyhalf and David Beckstrand a tough customer at center, Tribal eventually won 29-7. Mohe Tonga was a powerful presence in the forwards and flanker Lema Moors covered a lot of ground, launching attacks and also playing defense.

Mountain Ridge vs Brighton

These are two teams working hard to build and neither had a ton of height, so they played hard and quick. Brighton’s ability to get numbers to the ball and to run hard enough to bump off tacklers saw them through 24-17.

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LCA vs East

This was very much of a testing-out game between two teams that love to run. All three tries came from mistakes in the cored-upon team’s 22, as neither side was giving away much.

LCA pressured and while East hung on a loose ball on off a lineout led to LCA scoring early. A brilliant touchline conversion from flyhalf Justin Sau twisted the knife a little further.

East answered by camping out in the Layton Christian 22 for several minutes. LCA’s perimeter defense was really good and in the end they turned the ball over, only to lose it again and see East rumble in from short range.

In the second half, LCA was in attacking position only to lose the ball and then score off a blocked kick. It was that kind of game.

Flanker Metui Kaufusi put in a huge amount of work in this game making sure LCA kept the pressure, and center Penisoni Talanoa got them go-forward in traffic. 

Herriman vs Kahuku

The problem for Kahuku has been that much of the Hawai’ian rugby has been 7s and so they had to adjust to playing 15s. They did well in many aspects, especially their commitment to defending in the open field. They had size and power as well and as a result their scrum often pushed back Herriman’s.

Herriman, for their part, resolved to play fast and wide. Their lineout was very good and new player Holden McKell, playing flanker, found that he could disrupt Kahuku ball.

All that led to Herriman looking to torch Kahuku on the edges and the Red Raiders flying in to make tackles. They did, but some good work from the center pairing of USA U18 player and EIRA tourist Ryker Syddall along with Rylan Southwick set up three tries for a 15-0 Herriman win.

Southwick’s break and back-handed offload was the pick of the plays. (Cruelly, Southwick later on in the weekend suffered a bad injury and he is out for the year; best wishes from GRR for his recovery.)

Red Mountain vs SLV Rhinos

In a very tense encounter Red Mountain scored early paced by center Kingston Samuelu as well as No. 8 Junior Tonga’uiha—the latter later picking up an injury.

The Rhinos answered, playing very fast and looking to find space on the edge. But Red Mountain responded by punishing penalties (including a yellow for a high tackle) to set up Samuelo for a try. The Rhinos responded and converted and it was 15-12 with time winding down. 

The Rhinos made it all the way back to Red Mountain’s tryline, but not over it. and Red Mountain held on.

Masi and Karter Filipe were a big part of the Rhinos effort.