This week saw the beginning of this year’s Elite Insurance Sevens Series, starting in Cambridge this year’s Boys Under-13 competition runs through six counties before culminating in a Final Day at Franklin’s Gardens.
Spanning across Saints’ catchment area in the East Midlands and Eastern Counties, the Elite Insurance Sevens Series allows young rugby players to hone their skills in one of the Olympic’s newest sports and give the chance for schools across the regions to taste competitive rugby, whether they have experience it before or not.
Running between March 1st and March 23rd, the first tournament saw nine schools from across Cambridgeshire come together at The Perse School on Wednesday.
After eighteen pool games, the top finisher in each of the three pools went into a play-off pool, the same with the second and third place teams also. The top finishers then played off for the chance to make it to Finals Day at the Gardens.
The hosts The Perse School sped through to the final with two convincing play-off wins and they were soon joined by Felsted School who beat the third pool round top finishers, St Ivo’s, in the last match of the day to make it through.
Day two of the Series saw the competition move to Suffolk and The Royal Hospital School, where an incredible seventeen schools took part.
After a whopping thirty-four pool games had taken place, the top finishers were separated into two pools of three, again the same happening with the second and third place finishers too, for the play-off games.
The top finishers of these two pools then, after this set of games, progressed through to the Final’s Day at Saints. Again the hosts, RHS powered through to a Finals Day spot with two wins but the hopes of three schools rested on the last game of the day, with Woodbridge, Finborough and RGS Colchester all still able to progress after the first four games had been played.
RGC Colchester and Woodbridge lined up against each other for that last match and it was a last minute try for RGS Colchester that sealed the victory and their progression on.
The next Elite Insurance Sevens tournament takes place at Franklin’s Gardens on March 7th with twelve schools from across Northamptonshire competing for two tickets through to the Finals Day on April 27th.
