That is year one done.

Three tournaments. Fourteen matches. Eleven wins, one draw, two defeats. Two trophies, one of which had not been lifted by anybody since 1990. And nineteen players who got a game.

The season

  • 13 June — Hertford 7s U23, elite draw. Our debut, at the first-ever LIT Super Sevens U23 with UR7s. Won two, lost two — both defeats by a single score. Played without our own kit, which had not arrived.
  • 18 July — Hamplified Charity 7s. Five from five at Rugby St Andrews, in aid of the Matt Hampson Foundation. And with it, The Rugby Advertiser Cup.
  • 1 August — Cheltenham 7s Festival. Unbeaten in a day. Four wins, a draw, and the final.

Three tournaments in a first season. For a side finding its feet and building a squad on the move, that was probably the right number in the end.

What we learned

The format flattens the pyramid. We have had level 3 and level 8 players in the same seven and you could not always tell which was which. Sevens rewards fitness, work rate and decisions. That is genuinely liberating for a mixed squad.

Depth wins tournaments. Not the best seven — the best squad. Five games in a day at Cheltenham made that obvious, and because we do not roll subs through games, every player who travelled had to be able to go.

Young players just need the minutes. The clearest lesson of the year. Fraser Wilson and Seb Stacey came to us through the UR7s U23 competition at Hertford in June and finished the season as two of only six players to feature in all three tournaments — Fraser with three tries on the day we won Cheltenham. Nothing complicated about it: give people competitive rugby and they stay.

Margins are small at the top end. Our only two defeats all season came at Hertford, by three points and four points. That is the difference between a good debut and a perfect one.

The stuff around the rugby is the point. The tournaments we enjoyed most were the ones with something else going on — a festival, a cause, a town. Hamplified was the high point of the season and only part of that was the rugby.

Thank you

To MANOTAN and Zenith Performance for backing a side with no track record whatsoever. To UR7s for the Hertford invitation and for the players who came from it. To Rugby St Andrews RFC, Hamplified and Rugby & District RFU for bringing the Advertiser Cup back. To The Camera Guys. And to everyone who turned up, played, drove, watched or bought a raffle ticket.

2027

Nothing confirmed yet, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we do know:

  • We intend to defend The Rugby Advertiser Cup.
  • We want more than three tournaments.
  • We are still taking players.

If you run a sevens tournament and want a side that will turn up properly, get in touch. If you are a player, same.

Seven players. Fourteen minutes. See you in 2027.