Monday 27 April 2009

Sunshine 7s 2009

This was our first time visiting the prestigious Sunshine 7s. Unlike most 7s tournaments this was a straight knock out. Winning your first game would put you into the cup, loosing it would put you in the plate. After that if you lost you were out, so you were only guaranteed 2 games.

Out first game was to be against Apaches, a well established invitational team.

First Round Game vs Apaches 7-31 Loss

The first game was always going to be tough, especially as this would be our opening game of the season. We conceded early on, but were then shortly level when Unseld went round the outside of his man to score under the posts. From here onwards though we looked rusty. We didn't do anything majorly wrong, but neither did we do anything majorly right. There was a sequence of dropped balls and turn overs that allowed Apaches to pull away and run out comfortable winners.

Second Round Game Plate vs Fat Boys 71-0 Win

We had to wait about 3 hours for our next game as there seemed to be a few problems with the schedule of games. When we did eventually get on the pitch it was obvious there would be only 1 result. We ran in an easy 11 tried from Adam Daniel 3, Smithy 2, Unseld 2, Purdy, James Catlin, Nikki and Paul Archer.

Quarter Final Game Plate vs Tonbridge Judds 28-14 Win

Tonbridge Juddians 15s side have had a 100% season scoring over 1,000 points on their way to winning London SE 4. Knowing this we knew this would be a tough game. It proved to be tough, though we never looked likely to loose. The defense was very impressive and we were calm with the ball in hand. By half time we were 21-7 up and in control. We scored 1st in the 2nd half giving us a comfortable 21 point lead. At this point Juddians seemed to loose the plot, and their players seemed more interest in tryin to smash into us whether they were attacking or defending and totally lost any 7s skills they had previously shown. The final score was 28-14 and we were into the quarter finals. (Scorers Adam Daniel, Purdy, Nikki, Unseld)

Semi Final Plate vs Kamikaze 31-10 Win

Our semi finals was against our friendly rivals Kamikaze. Having played them twice last year and beating them twice were knew they'd want revenge, but not as much as we wanted to keep our 100% record. We were 3 scores up by half time and Kamikaze looked a little shocked to be honest. We kept the pressure up in the 2nd half scoring first. They then got 1 back before Unseld scored his 2nd of the game to give us a 31-5 lead. The game was over by this point and we took our foot off the pedal slightly allowing them to score once more to make the final score 31-10. We were in the finals and feeling confident.

Plate Final vs Sevenoaks 38-7 Win

The finals was to be against Sevenoaks of London 2 who beaten the host team East Grinstead in the semis. Running out between the cheerleaders to start the final was certainly a new one on us. From the kick off we were in total control of the game playing our best 7s yet.  We were 19-0 up by half time, and went into a 38-0 lead before easing up slightly allowing Sevenoaks to get a deserved try to end the game.

This was a perfect start to the season, and by the end of the competition we were playing some great 7s which bodes well for the rest of the season.