The journey into the unknown for the Bay of Plenty women's seven's rugby side produced plenty of smiles on the face of stand-in coach David Mays.

The Bay of Plenty side were having their first competition outing in the Northern Region Women's Sevens tournament played in Auckland on Sunday.

The Bay side ran Auckland A close after a slow start.

With the clock ticking down, Bay of Plenty were in front before Auckland crossed to take out a narrow 14-10 victory.

While they failed to adapt to the pace of the Waikato game going down 30 nil, they bounced back in their last encounter of the day to beat North Harbour.

The Bay team posted 20 unanswered points against North Harbour and went on to a 27-10 victory, to finish the tournament on a winning note.

'We went into our first tournament without any real expectations and were extremely happy to run the much vaunted Auckland A side so close, before finishing with a solid victory over North Harbour,” says David.

'While Bay of Plenty performed well they need to play a different game against sides that are physically bigger. They also learnt the levels of fitness that are required to compete against the heavyweights.”

The Bay of Plenty management team singled out several players for honourable mention.

Lavina Gould who returned home from the Gold Coast to play in the Bay side was absolute quality and impressed every time she got hold of the ball.

Opotiki's Lauralee Hillman took a dynamic approach to her half back role while Mika Tuilave Charteris who is one of the Bay new seven's recruits to the game excelled in her first experience of rugby.

'The real advantage of playing in the Northern Regional tournament was that the Bay players who were in combat for the first time, learned how to play with each other and learnt each other's strengths.”

Northern Region Women's Sevens Tournament – Results

Bay of Plenty 27 North Harbour 10, Auckland 14 Bay of Plenty 10, Waikato 30 Bay of Plenty 0