Herts 7s: first pictures

Phil has loaded up 63 pictures from Sunday's tournament - see "thumbnails" or slideshow.

Player of the tournament

Mike will no doubt be loading up his review with full statistics shortly, but pending that I guess that it has to be remembered that for the first three games all spectators said that everyone played better than ever seen before. The opening match with Pavworth (Paviors and Tamworth, we now know) was very good - 27-0 as I recall - but the second game against Kettering was close to perfection, as the 55-0 scoreline shows.

Try of the tournament?

The game with Bucks Jesters was marred by the loss of Hayley thanks to her ... ermmmm ... over-eagarness to discuss matters of legal interpretion with match officials? But - despite that - its is worth remembering that you won a game with only six players against the eventual fourth place team by a comfortable margin (22-12?).

Time did drag after that - it might have been possible to finish the event an hour of so earlier - and performance sagged a bit. The semi-final against Wisbech was a comfortable win, but not maybe as stylish as the group games and as for the final... well perhaps the best way to look at it is to say that everyone was so disappointed to achieve a result that even six months ago we might never have expected.

A mere inability to walk was not going to stop Georgie getting her medal...

All we need do now is sustain that starting level throughout a tournament, and above all keep our confidence up when we go behind. When we lose we do tend to lose by quite a margin - and that can only be due to self-belief - it is possible to come back from two (even three tries) down! The past month has shown that we are without doubt one of the best club teams in the country. Next Saturday anything is possible if we believe it is. It promises to be a memorable, and emotional, day. Let's make a bit of history too!

Herts 7s at Tabard RFC

This Sunday we are playing in the Herts 7s tournament at Tabard RFC in Radlett. We have entered the Letchworth U18 team and Laura will be playing for the U15 "Herts Barbarians" team.

Please meet at the Letchworth club at 9.10am to travel to Tabard by 9.50am. If you are travelling directly to Tabard, please ensure that Simon or Mike know.

Tabard is notoriously difficult to find but the organisers are doing their best to help us. Here is an extract from the confirmation of entry -

"Tabard are located at Cobden Hill, Radlett, Herts, WD7 7JN. For directions see www.tabardrfc.co.uk. We are very well hidden, so we will have blue, red and yellow balloons outside and a sandwich board advertising the event. The entrance is quite tight so please be careful when entering. The club is very near to the Cat & Fiddle Public House. If the pub is on your Right, carry on the club is 80 metres further on, on the left, if the pub is on your left you have gone too far, so turn around in the pub car park and go back.

There is a large car park and we will be charging £2 to park including a programme, this is to try and encourage people to fill their cars up so that we do have enough room for everyone."

The club website gives the following instructions on how to find the ground :

"Tabard RFC is located just south of Radlett on the A5183, which is the old A5. If travelling from the North go through Radlett heading south on the A5183 and there will be the Cat and Fiddle Public House on your right. 80 metres past the pub, on the left hand side, on the brow of the hill, is the entrance to Tabard RFC. If travelling from the south come through Elstree and continue North on the A5183 until eventually you meet 30 mph signs just south of Radlett. The entrance is then on the right on the brow of the hill. Opposite the entrance there is a sign saying "Cricket Club, Rugby Club" but this is often turned to face incorrectly! Ground Address: Cobden Hill, Radlett, Herts. WD7 7JN. Telephone 01923 855561"

I know that several of our players are unable to take part because of injury but please come along to support the team! Let Simon or Mike know if you need a lift.

An international summer

As our club season draws to an end, the international season for England's women's teams is picking up and given the exhaustive coverage to be found in the national and specialist rugby media (not!) I thought it might be of interest to some of you to briefly cover what will be happening over the next few months.

In July there will be a U20 "Nations Cup" tournament in Oakville, Ontario, Canada featuring the top nations in the world (apart from New Zealand) - ie. England, Canada, Wales, USA, and France. This event has been signposted for some time - by Rugby Canada anyway. Information about the event on our own RFUW - and to be fair on the otherwise excellent Welsh RFU - has been thin on the ground but the event promises to be well worth keeping an eye on. The hosts are supremely confident of winning the event, and given the recent performances of Canadian junior teams on tours to Europe this confidence is not unjustified.

In addition Rugby Canada have also revealed that there will be a tournament for the same countries senior teams in the last two weeks of August - and this event will take place in the UK. Again sources closer to home have been less than forthcoming about the event, but assuming our transatlantic cousins have not been overdoing the maple syrup it promises to be a fascinating event - far more significant than the Six Nations, and frankly very difficult to call. Beyond an England win, and probably a wooden spoon for the USA, the final positions are anyone's guess. Personally I'd expect Canada to come a strong second - ahead of Wales and France (in that order), but every game will be worth going to see - if and when we find out where they are to be played... and assuming someone has remembered to book some venues!

But before all that this weekend sees the FIRA European Championship in the Netherlands. There is actually a FIRA championship every year, but only every four years do the main nations - England, France and Wales - bother to take it seriously. Most years the "top teams" only enter their A teams, even supposing they enter at all.

Its a fairly intense competition. Of the top 14 European nations only Italy are not taking part, and the whole thing will be done and dusted in a week. The top eight nations in the FIRA ranking will play in a knock-out event, while the rest will play in a round-robin tournament to be followed by semi-finals and a final. England - the top seeds - will start the tournament on Saturday with a fairly easy game against eighth seeds Sweden. Other first round games should see France have no problem with the Netherlands, while Wales should have similarly few difficulties with Scotland. The fourth game will see Ireland take on Spain... and that one is anyone's guess, but the winner will take on England on Tuesday, which should see England into the final.

Quite who they will meet is far harder to call. The event is obviously designed to give and England/France final, but given the lacklustre performances of the latter recently don't be surprised to see Wales reaching their first major final.

This is all designed to build towards the next World Cup, with the hope tha someone will be able to put some sort of decent opposition to the all-powerful Kiwis. That is assuming there will be a World Cup ... only two and a half years out the IRB do not seem to be expending too much effort on finding a host for it. Rather different to the fuss and hoopla about the mens RWC!

Dazzling Dorking!

With the sun beating down all day and a rock hard playing surface, it was a perfect day for 7s rugby .... well, not really, but this was a superb tournament despite the obvious drawbacks noted above and a computer printer failure which meant us going back to using paper and pens for the day. (Fantastic technology, by the way - I wonder if it will catch on?)

There were 7 U18s team entered and these played in two groups : Wimbourne/Central Weald/Chobham and Letchworth/Dorking/Worthing/Mitcham : with the top 2 from each group going forward to the cup competition and the others competing for the plate.

Our first game was against Mitcham and the girls were in fine form scoring 5 tries to win the game comfortably 25-10. The second game saw Letchworth take on Worthing in a very evenly balanced match. It was really exciting to watch with breaks galore and fantastic try-saving tackles on both sides - the tackles by Natalie, Nikki and Emily being particularly memorable - but Letchworth were just beaten by 3 tries to 2. The final group game for Letchworth was against the home side who proved to be very strong rattling in some 6 tries with only one try from Nikki in reply. During this game, Carla landed very heavily on her shoulder and neck and was duly strapped down and carted off to the hospital to be fully checked over.

So at the end of the group games we found ourselves in 3rd place and destined for the plate competition. Meanwhile, Dorking and Worthing proceeded to the cup competition and deservedly came away as cup winners and runners-up respectivly.

In the plate competition, Letchworth played Chobham first and paid the penalty for conceeding 2 tries in quick succession at the start of the game. Having gone 10-0 down, Letchworth came back strongly but could not quite overcome the strong Chobham side eventually losing the game 20-15. The final match was against our first opponents of the day, Mitcham. This was a much closer encounter than the first meeting and, having established a good lead early on, Letchworth found themselves clinging on at the end to win by a single try 15-10

So at the end of a day of mixed fortunes and very hard work by all the players, Letchworth found themselves runners-up in the plate competition. Happily I can report that Carla's injury was not as serious as at first feared and she was released from hospital that afternoon.

Here are a few pictures of a great day of rugby -

There are more pictures on the famous Threlfall archive and also at www.scrumpix.co.uk which you may like to see.

This was a great tournament which everyone really enjoyed so many, many thanks to Jo Martin, to Dorking rugby club and, of course, to the first aid/ambulance crews for their help treating Carla's injury.

Letchworth try scorers :

Natalie (4), Nikki (3), Katie (3), Jess (3), Charlie

Letchworth U18s win trophy at Dorking 7s

Letchworth U18 girls won the runners-up shield in the 'Plate' competition at the London & South-East 7s tournament at Dorking RFC today.

Full report to follow shortly.

Simon's small stars secure silver

News from Herts Youth Games where the North Herts U11 tag team that Simon and several of you have been working with on Tuesday evenings finished an impresive second, beaten by East Herts in the final.

On a very hot day the North Herts girls stormed through their group undefeated before the final - a big difference from last year's monsoon!

The challenge now will be to keep these new stars in the game...

Herts 7s draw: opponents old and new

The draw for Herts 7s has been published.

The U15 competition includes a "Barbarians" team which Laura will be playing for. They are in Group A of the competition along with Tamworth (11.00) and Basford (11.40).

Curiously, and to get off the point for a minute, the latter I think originally entered just as Rochford, which was an encouraging sign - I thought - of a cluster unclustering [see previous article and in particular the discussion for what I am getting at - this is not an anti-Basford dig before it is interpreted that way!]. Apparently not. Only when we see some successful declusterings will I believe that the policy is in the long-term interests of the game - until then... well, without wishing to reopen the debate let's just say it worries me a bit. Anyway...

After that they will have at least two more games in the bowl, cup or plate (congratulations to the organisers for sticking to the Herts 7s policy of making all games "count" - no "dead rubbers" at Tabard!).

For the U18s we are in Pool D alongside Bucks Jesters (12.00) and Pavworth Maoris (12.40). The former are basically Aylesbury/Milton Keynes, while the latter are mainly the Paviors team that were our nemesis at East Midland 10s and Herts 7s last season... time to put something right? The U18s will also then proceed into cup, plate or bowl semi finals like the U15s. The fun ends at around 4pm... well, that is when its DUE to finish anyway!

Full draw in the Herts blog. The tournament rules are unchanged from, well, our hosting of the event in 2006.

Winning on paper?

This is quite funny, though whether Worcester would agree I am not sure. After all, would you like a news report on your triumph illustrated with a picture of the team that finished fourth?

Women's Rugby Review have done a bit better - right team, wrong trophy!

Thursday training

All players please note that training this Thursday will be from 5.45 to 7.00 pm.

London & South-East 7s : times & directions

This Sunday (11th May) the U18s are playing in the London & South-East 7s at Dorking RFC. There are still 9 entries in the U18s event and the draw for it will be announced at registration at 9.45am. The journey is expected to take around 1 hour 30 minutes so can everyone please meet at the Letchworth club at 8.00 am.

The Dorking club can be found at The Pavilion, The Big Field, Brockham, Surrey RH3 7LZ (Tel : 01737 844282) and directions to the club can be found at http://www.dorkingrugbyclub.co.uk/Directions.htm

Happy 18th Birthday, Randy!

Bank Holiday Monday saw most of the U18s team plus coaches, friends and family back at the Letchworth club to celebrate Randy's 18th birthday. It was a great relaxing day in beautiful warm weather but a certain competitive element continued through the day as these pictures demonstrate.

We got underway with an U18s v. O18s (I could have said 'Adults' but that would be stretching the bounds of credibility too far) rounders match which was played in good spirit with both teams cheating as much as possible. First off is Simon ......

Meanwhile over at the boundary fence, Wonky has found a way in ....

... and joins the O18s team to cheer them on ...

After a fantastic innings by the O18s, it's the U18s turn ....

The girls cheer on another bit of spectacular rule changing part way through the game ...

Result :

O18s = Too many rounders to count!
U18s = Too few rounders to matter!

Masterchefs, Dave & Dave set to work on the barbecue ...

After eating, a gentle game of 'Piggy in the middle' ...

... and then someone had the idea of using the icy water used for keeping the drinks cool to keep the people cool, whether they wanted to be cooled or not ....

... and then someone else decides that what's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose ...

... and then yet another hydrophile decides to use the entire contents of the coolbox ...

Randy, fearing what may come next, makes a hurried bid for freedom ...

Fortunately, Randy is back in time for Wonky & Simon to present her with cakes, chocolates and a team picture signed by her friends ...

... and Sharpy presents her with a bottle of bubbly ...

Randy celebrates ...

... and everyone takes cover remembering the icy water from a few minutes earlier ...

Funnily enough, Julie remembers the icy water better than most and Simon looks distinctly worried as she appears brandishing a knife. Equally worried, Wonky tries to look innocent ...

Fortunately, it's just for Randy to cut the cake that Wonky baked ...

Happy Birthday, Randy!!

National 10s at Lichfield

What a frenetic competition! The match scheduling saw all 6 teams competing in matches every 40 minutes from 12.15 pm to 2.50 pm which, with the usual array of stoppages for injuries, etc., meant that almost every one of the games we played in finished after the next one was due to start!

The competitors in the 2008 RFUW National 10s finals were from all over England : Darlington MP, Letchworth, Reading, Tynedale, Wimbourne & Worcester : and the competition was fierce from the first whistle to the last.

Letchworth opened against Wimbourne who we drew with only a few weeks ago at Reading and a very close fought battle again ended in a draw with the same 10-10 scoreline! Try scorers for Letchworth were Sasha and Hayley.

The second game was against Tynedale in which Letchworth built up a sound lead through 3 tries by Hayley and a try and 2 conversions from Sasha only to have Tynedale respond strongly to the challenge scoring 3 tries of their own and chasing the game all the way to the final whistle. The final score was Letchworth 24 Tynedale 17.

The third game was against favourites Worcester who lived up to that billing with some fine rugby. Despite Letchworth's best efforts, Worcester scored 6 tries and ran out 38 - 0 winners.

The penultimate game was against Darlington Mowden Park who stormed away to lead Letchworth 15 - 0 at the interval and, but for some determined defence, it could have been more - Katie got underneath the ball as Darlington tried to ground it for a try, Charlie drove a Darlington attacker out from the in goal area, etc.. I don't know what was said at half-time, but the Letchworth that came out for the second half were in determined mood and they forced themselves back into the game with tries by Carla and Natalie to make it 15-10 with just two minutes remaining. The finale of the game came with Nikki breaking through the centre of the Darlington defence deep in the Letchworth half, running half a pitch length before the defence got to her and then offloading to Randy who galloped under the posts to level the scores. Sasha held her nerve to kick over the conversion and Letchworth had secured the narrowest of wins 17 - 15.

The last game was against our old adversary, Reading. Our last meeting at Reading a few weeks ago had resulted in a convincing victory for the hosts and this match was to be no different. Although Letchworth were competing strongly throughout the match, Reading cut though to score 4 tries and the match ended with Letchworth camped on the Reading line but unable to convert that position into points. Final score : Reading 24 Letchworth 0.

The major downside of this match was the injury to Rosie who had put in tremendous effort all day. I understand that, although the injury is not as bad as at first feared, Rosie is likely to be out of action for several weeks. Get well soon, Rosie!

And so we come to the final positions. Having won 2 games and drawn another we found ourselves in mid-table with an identical record to Wimbourne who, by virtue of a much better points difference, are placed above us :

1st Worcester

2nd Reading

3rd Wimbourne

4th Letchworth

5th Darlington Mowden Park

6th Tynedale

What a hard day that was! The Letchworth squad all pulled together fantastically throughout the day and they never gave up even when the task appeared impossible. The reward for that belief and that effort is to be be placed 4th in the RFUW National 10s - one place higher than last year - and the highest placing Letchworth Girls have ever achieved in an RFUW National competition!

Selecting our player of the tournament was a very difficult job for the coaches because all the squad excelled themselves on the day. When the deliberations were over, the final verdict gave the title to Randy.

Results :

Letchworth 10 Wimbourne 10

Letchworth 24 Tynedale 17

Letchworth 0 Worcester 38

Letchworth 17 Darlington MP 15

Letchworth 0 Reading 24

Tries :

Hayley 4

Sasha 3

Carla 1

Natalie 1

Randy 1

Conversions :

Sasha 3

• A slideshow of photos from Sunday can now be found in the Threlfall Archive.

London & South-East 7s

On Sunday, May 11th the U18s are travelling to Dorking to take part in the London & South-East 7s and, according to the provisional entry list we've received, we should be meeting quite a few teams that we haven't played before as well as a couple of teams that we've met quite a few times over the last two seasons!

The U18 entries for the London & South-East 7s are :

Beckenham RFC
Central Weald
Chobham RFC
Dorking RFC
Letchworth Garden City RFC
Mitcham RFC
Wimbourne RFC
Worthing RFC I
Worthing RFC II

The draw for the group stages will be made next week.

Taken any good photos recently?

The IRB have launched their annual Rugby Photograph of the Year competition - first prize, a trip for two to the Dubai Rugby Sevens at the end of November. The five runners up will have their photographs published alongside the winning entry in the IRB World Rugby Yearbook 2009, which will be on the bookshelves in early November.

The competition aims to capture "the spirit of Rugby" and is open to both professional and amateur photographers and photographs can be submitted from all levels of the game, including local club and junior rugby. The judges will be looking for a stand out picture that depicts the qualities of teamwork, camaraderie, fellowship, skill and fair play.

Last year’s competition attracted well over 110 entries from 16 countries. The winner was reported in the blog as it featured a women's international between Wales and Italy.

To enter the competition photographers must email a jpeg of no less than 300 dpi of their chosen photograph to dominic.rumbles@irb.com or send a 15” x 12” print to Dominic Rumbles, Communications Manager, International Rugby Board, Huguenot House, 35-38 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, by no later than August 8 2008.

So if you know any photographers you might mention it to them?

U15 Player of the Year

The U15 Player of the Year, Laura, was not able to be with us at the Awards evening last Saturday but it was great to see her at training tonight and Wonky took the opportunity to present her with the trophy -

Well done, Laura!