First signs of spring: everyone invited to Herts Sevens 2009

The first sign of spring is with us - the invitation to this season's Herts Sevens went out today.

This will be Hertfordshire's sixth annual girls rugby festival, growing from a tag festival at Hemel in 2004, to a small local event at Chesham in 2005, before exploding to become a major regional - if not national - event after being held at Letchworth in 2006, often second only in size to the National Sevens. Since 2006 the tournament has been held at Welwyn (2007) and Tabard (2008) and this year it will be the turn of the OA Saints at OA Rugby to host the event on Sunday 17th May 2009. As usual there will be U15 and U18 competitions, and a U12 event is also planned if there is sufficent interest.

Looking back, there is a small band of players at Letchworth who played at Hemel in 2004 who are still playing for the club - Mel, Nikki, Hayley and Carla - and for three of them this will be their last appearence in Letchworth colours on a Hertfordshire rugby field (they will have one final hurrah at the Nationals the following week), so it could be an emotional tournament. Nikki, Hayley and Carla have also played (I think) in every tournament - which may be unique.

Readers from other clubs can find entry forms and more information by following this link. Its an excellent day out - a tournament of the same size as the Nationals, but more open to clubs (and schools!) at all levels of experience. OAs is also well placed minutes from the M1, making the event more accessible to clubs across London, the South East, South, and Midlands than ever before. Get your entries in now!