Torrential rain dominated the Mount Maunganui Club Rugby Sevens Tournament

I'm told this is the largest club sevens tournament in New Zealand with 32 teams competing.

This is my rugby club so I usually help put tents up first thing and then lend a hand on the barbeque, chopping onions and selling the traditional Kiwi snack for such occasions - the 'sausage in bread'. But we didn't sell many this year as the crowds stayed away due to the weather.

Typically, tents are erected to provide shade for the players because late January is the heat of summer but this year it was all about sheltering from the pouring rain brought in by the Easterly Wind.

There were floods in the area due to the 115mm of water that fell in the 24hrs between 6am Sunday and 6am Monday.

Some of the players didn't seem to mind. The team from Galatea were enjoying themselves.

Others took it in their stride

Some supporters braved the weather

I'm still struggling with my focus or my composition. I'm letting the camera do the work and trusting the quantity to yield quality. I see professional photographers running through their shots during breaks in play so I assume they do some of this but I also assume it's not as bad as me.

One issue is that I'm never sure which shots I'm going to use. Some are for RugbyHair, others for AtTheSevens, some are for CrapRefs - but not many - others are just in case and they hang around on my hard drive taking up space so I need to do more homework, planning and focus my efforts.

This one was a little better

There were a couple of good hair and crowd shots.

Locals manned the BBQ under shelter of a large tent

I didn't want to get my equipment wet and so took shelter most of the day, shooting what I could fro the BBQ tent where the story was the rain ...

Eventually, those in low-lying areas had to abandon their stations

And head for higher ground

Four Nations International Sevens Rugby Tournament

It was a hot day in Auckland when the College Rifles Rugby Club hosted their annual Sevens tournament in mid January. The event has a grand title but this is it's second year and there were just 8 of the planned 12 teams competing.

That said, the venue is very well appointed for hosting Sevens Rugby and the standard of play was high.

The Venue

There is a shaded area for the players and grass verges on both sides of the main field.

Players area

I was trying out a video-based Panorama application for the iPhone. It is a novel and quick way to take panorama photos. It uses the video camera and all you have to do is start recording, pan around the shot you want and then stop it when you are done.

The output resolution is average but no criticism to the developers, it's just that the video camera resolution on the iPhone is considerably less than that of the new camera (VGA, 400 x 600) so the application doesn't have that much to work with.

That said, the output is fine for web-sharing of scenes that don't require close-up.

View from the grass verge on the far side of the main field.

Behind the goalposts of the main field.

The surface

The playing surface is astroturf and it is treated with small fines of rubber to make it playable. It made for an interesting effect when tread on by players in motion.

It left a tell-tale splash effect one pace behind players.

The supporters

There were some pretty girls

And one pretty boy ... well, he was in good shape.