Cranleigh show big boys how it is done
THE sevens season continued with a quiet week before it truly erupts, with just one headline tournament taking place.
With the U18s Academy League reaching its climax, the schools season has subsided somewhat to ensure teams can field their best sides at a crucial point in the season.
The next two weeks see Prior Park, Collegiate School, Reed’s School, Ipswich, Edwin Doran and the North of England School Sevens all host tournaments as the buildup to the school sevens season’s magnum opus, Rosslyn Park.
One Rosslyn Park tournament specialist is Cranleigh, who despite fronting up as a smaller school in the Rosslyn Park picture, won back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017. They laid down their first marker of the season with their dominant victory at the Hampton School Founders’ Day sevens tournament.
Heading into the tournament as favourites being the reigning champions, they fended off a high calibre pool, including St Benedict’s, ACE school Gordon’s, Epsom and most notably Ipswich, who already have two pieces of silverware from the Seaford Southern Tens tournament, and the inaugural Hurstpierpoint Sevens. Having come through the Gordon’s and St Benedict’s game without conceding, Cranleigh beat Epsom 22-10, then Ipswich 21-12 to reach the cup final.
Epsom came through the group in second thanks to comprehensive wins against St Benedict’s and Gordon’s, and crucially a surprise 17-12 win over Ipswich, setting up a Plate final in doing so.
On the other side of the draw, Millfield recovered from a shock opening 1210 loss to St John’s Leatherhead to beat John Fisher 47-7 and Hurstpierpoint 22-5 to set up a decisive fixture vs hosts Hampton. Their 33-0 win sent them through to the final on points difference, but they were eventually beaten 2912 by Cranleigh.
Hampton were unlucky to not reach the final given their group stage was emphatic elsewhere; they beat Hurstpierpoint 28-0 and John Fisher 33-5, but the narrow 21-19 win over St John’s Leatherhead proved to be the difference.