Big big thank you to the players who played for the club this weekend and got up at 7.00 am on Saturday morning to fly the Richmond colours and make the journey to Stoneygate to defend our Sevens title from last year. Again it was great to see players from all three teams in one team, and there was a cracking blend of experience with new faces, all of whom worked their little socks of seeing as we went with 8, and had to play 7 matches!!!! Row, Fish, Hayley, Kimbo, Juppy, Shoulders, Vicki and Aoife played some of the best team sevens Richmond has produced, lots of team tries where everyone literally touched the ball before someone touched down!! 

We arrived at 9.55 am, first match scheduled for 10.00 am so Shoulders was running from the car park pulling on her shirt!! Waspies were delighted to see us coming, and their two teams had been reduced to one too given Pirates and Free Spirit abstractions so they were not happy! 

Due to some late minute cancellations the women’s section was rejigged into two pools of five, which was cracking and meant four pool matches, a semi and final.  SO first up were Moseley (61-0 win), followed by Swans (41-0 win), Gate (53-0 win) and Oxford (41-0 win), so a clean sheet through to the semis.  Rolling subs helped preserve the legs, albeit not much given we only had 8!

Onto the semis - against Sheffield, who had just narrowly lost to Wasps who went onto their semi against the Fijian Free Spirit team who you could hear running down the pitch as they scored tries! But again, the girls gave away nothing, and put together some fantastic sevens play which the side line and Leicester Tigers applauded, winning 46 - 0.

Meanwhile in the other semi final, Wasps were clashing with Free Spirit, and winning 17 - 12 going into the last minute of the match.....but just when you think its over, a great big Fijian runs right over the top of Boggie and touches down under the posts.....and then kicks the conversion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wasps 17 - FREE SPIRIT 19!!!!!! Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio!!!!!

Obviously it then dawned on us that we had now to play the same Fijians in the final!!!  But what was ironic was that they had been really good about stopping people play, and then running over the top of people, and scored in the first minute of the match, the first try we had lost!! But our lot didn’t panic and had the sense to play sevens, and stick to our pattern, and pulled away brilliantly when they needed to, and once we had pulled it out as wide as possible on two or three occasions the gap in the middle was made for Juppy to glide through (she never ever actually looks like she is running!!!) or send it out to Aoife on the wing (who likewise never looks like she is running!!!).  But everyone in the final played out of their socks, Kim and Hayley became honorary forwards, Shoulders put in some great lines and big tackles, and Fish and Row were everywhere. 

So a nice big trophy, celebratory beer, well earned prize money....and back in the car............. totally knackered but very very happy!!!