Starting out in Wrecclesham early Sunday morning, the 49ers had a big day ahead. Having had late dropouts during the week, the 49ers were left with less than perfect numbers. Even so, we bundled into our cars and headed to the London Scottish ground in Richmond for Rugby Rocks 7's tournament. On arrival things looked up as our fearless leader (Bainesey), had provided us with three new members for the 49ers; Nathan, Nick and Locky.

As soon as our first match kicked off, it was clear that our team were very much a different side to that of previous tournaments. The faces were much the same, but the playing style had changed immensely and definitely for the better. Our first try of the day was scored by Mark Baines, taking a well timed pass on the wing to gas the opposition. After Baineseys try more came rolling in, notably Nathan scoring five, Toby scoring, Andy scoring one (on his third day of playing rugby) and Matt Kelleher scoring one.

Compared with Farnham 7’s and Petersfield 7’s we played a more expansive game, moving the ball to make space rather than taking contact. Unfortunately the area in which we suffered was on our wing, with opposition tries often being caused by not covering the last man effectively, once identified as a team this did not happen again.

After hard graft throughout the day the 49ers reached the plate quarter finals, missing out narrowly to Tesco’s sevens by five points. On a whole, the entire 49ers squad played commendable rugby that is outstanding for such a newly formed team with improvements made all round. I look forward to the next tournament where we will continue to grow, and with a little more experience will hopefully come away with some silverware to join our collection.

Written by Matt Kelleher