The Cheltenham 7s Festival closed our season. The festival runs across the weekend; our rugby was all on the Saturday, 1 August — five matches in a day, and we did not lose one of them.

About that word, "Social"

This needs explaining, because "we won the social competition" undersells it, and we would rather set it out honestly than either overclaim or undersell.

Cheltenham runs a ladder of competitions:

  • Elite — the top draw
  • Social — the one we entered
  • Super Social
  • Supa Dupa Social

With three tiers underneath it and only Elite above, "Social" at Cheltenham functions as the festival's open competition. It is where sides who are not full-time sevens outfits but can genuinely play end up. That is the company we were in, and that is the draw we came out of on top of.

The squad

  • 01 Tyler Russell
  • 02 Liam Leeson
  • 03 Adam Walker
  • 04 Nate Atherton
  • 05 Ciaran Leeson C
  • 06 Harry Liston
  • 07 Toby Bryant
  • 08 Aaron Esiri
  • 09 Elliot Harvey-Evers
  • 11 Fraser Wilson
  • 12 Seb Stacey
  • 13 Tom Oglethorpe
  • 14 Joe Porter

Thirteen played. Ciaran Leeson captained.

Game by game

Pool 1 OLFC 19–17 W
  • Fraser Wilson +con
  • Tyler Russell +con
  • Liam Leeson
Pool 2 Sketty Hoops 36–12 W
  • Fraser Wilson
  • Nate Atherton +con
  • Ciaran Leeson
  • Aaron Esiri +con
  • Toby Bryant
  • Aaron Esiri +con
Pool 3 Komodo 7s 32–7 W
  • Nate Atherton +con
  • Joe Porter
  • Joe Porter
  • Fraser Wilson
  • Toby Bryant
  • Adam Walker
Pool 4 Vivat 14–14 D
  • Nate Atherton +con
  • Joe Porter +con
Final Petelo Rugby All Stars 17–5 W
  • Joe Porter
  • Harry Liston +con
  • Aaron Esiri

The numbers

118 points scored, 55 conceded. Twenty tries across five matches. Ten different players crossed the whitewash.

Joe Porter finished as top scorer with four, including one in the final. Fraser Wilson, Nate Atherton and Aaron Esiri got three apiece.

Fraser is one of our UR7s lads — he and Seb Stacey came through the U23 route at Hertford back in June and have played every tournament since. Seven weeks from a first competitive run-out to three tries on a winning day is a decent return on giving young players minutes.

The Vivat draw was the one that could have cost us. Fourteen apiece, two tries each, and a tighter game than anything else in the pool.

Five games, one day, fourteen men

All five matches were played on the Saturday. Fourteen minutes of sevens is brutal; five lots of it inside a single day, in an English August, is a different test again.

And we do not roll substitutes through games to manage it. Everyone who travels plays. That is harder on the legs and it is the whole point — nobody goes to Cheltenham to stand and watch.

Closing out year one

Three tournaments played, two won, and a trophy from 1950 in the cabinet. For a side that started the year as a group chat and a kit design, we will take that.

Thanks to everyone at Cheltenham — a brilliantly run festival and a proper way to finish a first season.