Sherborne 7s Festival Report
Sherborne 7s Festival Report
The Belhaven squad left the school at Saturday lunch time full of anticipation for a new challenge against some new opposition. This opposition was to be found 444 miles south and, after a long trip on the Saturday, Sunday morning saw the team ready to go. Piping and drumming themselves onto the field set the tone for the day. Belhaven were to perform as well as could be hoped.
The Sherborne small schools festival has never kept score in the fixtures. This means that there are no official winners of any one game or in fact the tournament overall. However, as is the nature of sport, all teams were aware of how many tries each team had scored. While the performance in a game is the most important thing, the number of tries scored often reflects this performance and therefore I will use them for reference in our fixtures.
Belhaven opened their tournament scoring six tries to nil against Barnardiston Hall. Belhaven showed a dominant display against a decent opposition. This game was immediately followed by a tougher fixture against Hawthorns school. Despite going two tries down, Belhaven did well to come back with two tries of their own. Eventually Belhaven ran out of stream and conceded two more tries but this performance was good and exactly why we had travelled the distance - to be tested.
After a break for lunch, Belhaven had two more quick fixtures. In the first really physical game, Belhaven stood up to the challenge and scored three tries to one against Castle Court school. Another quick turn around meant a fixture straight away against Cumnor House. Belhaven were again too good for the opposition who had some strong runners eventually scoring six tries to three. The last fixture was against St Hugh’s and Belhaven were getting tired, as were all teams. Not content to switch off though, Belhaven again performed well overpowering their opposition six tries to nil.
There were a few things which were pleasing about the festival. In each game, all players in the squad got onto the field. This gave them each an opportunity to show their skills and test themselves. The attitude of the team towards each other and their opposition was superb and a credit to the school. The willingness of the musicians to play into the field and again at the end of the festival was brilliant and one of the highlights of the tournament overall. If you have not seen it, take a look at the school sports twitter account @BelhavenSport: https://twitter.com/BelhavenSport/status/1505499887521120257?s=09
Overall, the squad can be tremendously proud of their efforts.
