The best laid plans and all that ...

The unfortunate cancellation of one of the most enjoyable events of the rugby calendar - the Rochford 10s tournament - left us at a bit of a loose end this weekend but our neighbours at Ampthill and Stevenage stepped forward to fill the void in our fixture list.

Unfortunately, things didn't turn out quite as planned today when the 3 clubs - depleted by injury and school holiday absentees - got together for games at Legends Lane. The trouble was that the teams were rather more depleted than we had expected and the U15s had to settle for a joint training session while the U18s fared somewhat better by playing a 7s game between a Letchworth/Stevenage team in Letchworth colours and an Ampthill/Letchworth team in Ampthill colours.

It was a good game with plenty on crunching tackles going in on both sides and some fine breakaway tries in the best traditions of 7s rugby, most notably by Carla who ran fully 80 metres to score her third try in the closing minutes of the game. Jess also scored a super hattrick and Nikki converted all 6 of the Letchworth/Stevenage tries.

And, finally, the hattrick girls. Firstly, Jess storms under the posts for her third try (by the wonders of telephoto lenses, it looks to me as if she's going to bounce off the post protectors ... but she didn't, of course!) -

- and Carla sets off on her epic 80 metre dash for her third try -

The game was played in a fine spirit with all the players giving everything right up to the final whistle when the score was

Letchworth & Stevenage 42 Ampthill & Letchworth 10.

Letchworth scorers :

Tries : Jess (3), Carla (3)

Conversions : Nikki (6)