Winchester under 7s carried off the Hampshire A tournament honours on Sunday, becoming Hampshire County champions by beating Andover 21-18 in a closely fought, final at Fordingbridge RFC. On a glorious, sunny day, Winchester ran in almost 140 tries in their 6 matches, playing skilful, fast tag rugby and defending with immense energy and persistence.

Pool victories against Ellingham, US Portsmouth, Vectis and Trojans were followed by a hard fought and impeccably refereed semi-final game against New Milton. With the scores level at 17-17 at full time and the teams equal on points awarded in the pool matches, Winchester went through having scored more tries in the pool stages (100 to 65).

Congratulations to all the squad on an outstanding performance – Ben Shewry, Tom Jennings, Jamie Hickson, Nicholas Moore, William Matthews, Matthew Carrall-Wilcocks, Gilbert Rosenfalck, James Tall, Henry Layzell, Matthew DeLara, Cameron Kingston and Ben Perrin – and to coaches Tom Shewry and Alex Perrin.

Winchester also supplied half of a Barbarians team on the day with Trojans RFC and narrowly failed to win the Shield final. The Barbarians team went down 22-19 in the final to Havant RFC despite Winchester’s 6-man squad maintaining their 100% record throughout. Congratulations to Sam Holliday, Dominic Kelly, Patrick Dunne, Harry Bristowe, James Poulteney and Monty Randle and coach Nigel Holliday on a top performance.

Thanks for all the fantastic support from parents and grandparents on the day and coaches throughout the club (including the club’s Rugby Chairman) and congratulations on a truly amazing effort.

Dom Hardy
25.03.12