U13's win the Ultimate Rugby 7’s Tournament hosted at Ding Crusaders

U13 Boys – Ultimate Rugby 7’s Tournament hosted at Ding Crusaders new facilities

An amazing tournament win for our U13’ albeit an horrific injury for our stand-out player of the tournament

On a day when the weather couldn’t decide what it wanted to do our U13 travelled over to Frenchay for their first 7’s tournament and looking to see how they have physical matured against the other teams and to put into practice everything they’d learnt since last season after their amazing D&W Cup group stage performances were cruelly cut-short due to lock-down.
The coaches agreed that we would treat this as a competitive tournament so took a slimmed down squad, all too aware that fitness was going to be key.

Our competition was Dings; Tidworth and Thornbury

Our first group match was against Thornbury who very quickly ran in 3 tries before the boys had woken-up. Then the rain stopped and our boys woke-up and started to compete. This resurgence from Chippenham blunted their very heavy, bruising attack with some fantastic tackling by our forwards which gave a base from which our backs could attack. This first group match saw a 5-5 draw. A fair result.
Dings were up next and we saw 2 threats from their wing and a useful back-rower which we masterfully negated. The boys had started to get into their stride. Adam, Crispin, Flynn, James, Josh and Oli started to run the show demonstrating fitness and controlled aggression. A good win for the boys.
Tidworth, a scratch side, who had demonstrated skill with the ball in hand but had struggled with the physicality of Thornbuiryerry and then Dings were then subjected to, with no other words for it, an onslaught from Chippenham – it was a mercy for them when the final whistle went.
Chippenham finished in second place in group, on points difference, behind Thornbury which meant that the first semi-final was Dings vs Chippenham. Then disaster happened, a Chippenham break, a ruck and shout by our scrum-half for help and Josh, our stand-out player of the tournament, was down in obvious pain…a double leg-break. Game stopped!

Dings and UR7’s staff were fantastic and their responsiveness was everything that you could have asked for. Ambulance on the way, a paramedic and physio were the first responders – he was in good hands and was eventually moved to BRI by St John’ with Mum and Dad.
The semi-final was moved to another pitch and the boys now had an added incentive to go on and win for Josh. A well-rehearsed and cunning line-out move by the boys started the ruthless and systematic demolition of Dings, who had no answer to the strength, pace and skill of Chippenham. Final score 7-2 to Chippenham

Thornbury approached the final in exactly the same way as the group-stages match…fast and furious; but this time Chippenham absorbed their attack with dominating tackles and quality rucking. And then our fitness started to tell and Thornbury who absorbed the first sallies into their space couldn’t cope with Chippenham pulling them left, then right, then punching into the middle then pulling them wide again. Their structure lost cohesion and Chippenham started to pull away…after the second try Bunchy’s kicking game had them constantly turning their backs to us allow our fast, dominating forwards (Adam, Crispin, Flynn and Oli) to provide a base from which our captain James could launch our backs (Bunchy, EthanB, Ethan McB, ‘Ginge’, Joe and Riley) to capitalise on the space that we now had.

Our first competitive tournament win, with the boys worthy winners!

That was for you Josh!!