Thursday 24 June 2010

The opening leg of the summer rugby 10’s circuit couldn’t have gone any better for the Teamlink Titans at the annual Bishop’s Cup Tournament in St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Fielding their strongest team to date, the Titans took on the much-fancied Monza in the event’s opening fixture in what proved to be a bruising encounter for both teams. The fiery Azzuri scored what proved to be one of only two tries conceded by Teamlink in the whole tournament but could not claim victory in the 5-5 thriller.

The Titans’ table topping position took them through to the quarter finals where Team Remus faced a side nearing its peak. A 43-0 score line was closely followed by a 19-0 whitewash of tournament favourites Salerno, also of Italian stock, in the semi finals before Stuttgart made their presence known in the showpiece fixture.

With the Titans defence proving resilient all tournament, it came as a major surprise when the back line was breached by the Germans. However, Sam Hobbs, Phil Rogers, Liam Walter & James Newby crossed the whitewash to avenge last year’s defeat at the same stage.

Titans’ Team Manager, Mike Rollason, was overjoyed at the result and credited the performances to “hard graft from a committed bunch of lads whose approach to the tournament led them to silverware”. Titans player Lewis Williams (Westcombe Park RFC) followed this up with “If only life could be one big Teamlink rugby tour”. Well, Lewis, Stockholm Tens Rugby Tournament is only 6 weeks away so let’s hope the Titans can re-group and continue the success into Europe’s premier Tens event in Sweden at the start of August.