The Bury St Edmunds tournament, now in its fourth year, was chosen as a leg for the inaugural Super Sevens Series of national events, and all the teams provided the crowd with some exciting action during the 50 matches.
For the Saints it was also a good opportunity to give some rugby to players from the first team, Senior and Junior Academies, and the squad got off to a good start, beating Burrda Ronin 33-7. A wake-up call against Samurai Barracudas followed, losing 36-0, but the Saints secured their place in the knockout stages with a 29-5 win over the Ramblin Jesters.
The Saints' most entertaining game of the day came in the cup quarter finals with a close game against British Students. That 36-24 victory set up a semi-final against Templars, and although the Saints came from behind to take a narrow lead a late try from the Templars won the game 19-14.
However the Templars lost comfortably to the Barracudas, who featured former Saints Andy Vilk and John Rudd in their line-up.
Academy manager Alan Dickens took charge of the squad for the day and he said it was a good exercise for the club.
"It was a good afternoon to be a part of, and good for the players to get some rugby at the end of the season," he said. "We were up against some of the best Sevens teams in the country who have players who play this form of the game more often than we do, but I thought we got better during the day.
"The second game was a useful wake-up call and we used that as motivation to get to the semi-finals, where it was unfortunate to concede a late try. It is also good to get the senior players into a team alongside the youngsters, and Scott Armstrong, Stu Commins and Vasily Artemyev in particular put in strong performances.
"We're always delighted to support events like this in our region, especially at clubs like Bury St Edmunds, which ran a great day under the leadership of playing chairman Mike Robinson. I'd like to thank Mike and the rest of his team for putting on such a good event, and the Saints fans who came out to watch us. Hopefully we'll be invited back next season!"
You can see pictures from the day right now on the Saints' official Facebook page, courtesy of Red Hat Photo.
SAINTS SQUAD FOR BURY ST EDMUNDS SEVENS
Scott ARMSTRONG
Stuart COMMINS
Darrell DYER
James INGLE
Sam FARMER
Ryan GLYNN
Greig TONKS
Anders MOGENSEN
Alex DAY
Noah CATO
Vasily ARTEMYEV
Tom COLLINS
Glyn HUGHES
