On the wettest day for weeks the Sidmouth Under-7s played in a mini festival at Honiton, writes David Monro-Higgs.

The other teams came from Honiton, Weston-super-Mare and a international team from Wales.

Sidmouth fielded three Under-7 boy’s teams and one girls’ team.

The first Under-7 team match versus Weston featured Sam Hartland who came alive this week and soldiered on despite his chronic injury flaring up, showing strong determined running (scored one try with two opponents hanging off his tag belt!) and good game awareness. He was eventually forced to retire and the rest of the team, coached by Major Grove, held on to win 9-7 against the Weston team. The other matches against Wales and Honiton were both drawn.

Coach Simon Dunstan’s team managed to play four matches with draws against Honiton (8-8 and 6-6), a win versus Weston (7-6) and a draw versus Wales Under-7 (9-9) and then finally Honiton at 6-6. Gyll Grey stood out for his superb support work and Koray Konar’s speed and energy left the opposition at times trailing in his wake.

The girl’s team played three matches. The first against Honiton produced a decisive 8-6 victory with tries from Ellie Monro Higgs, Cleo Turley, Zoe Allen and May Newbery.

The girls demonstrated their ability to link up in the open field with spatial awareness that often left the boys wrong footed!

In the second match against Wales Daisy Grove showed her tactical awareness scoring two sniping tries from a few metres out diving through the oppositions legs. The final score by the girls where a 5-metre pass from Ellie Wood to Cleo Turley put the latter in at the corner looked to close the match 8-7, but with seconds remaining Wales score the equalizer. The last game against Weston was a draw.

There is one final touring game at Blackmore on May 4, starting in the morning and presentations to round off the season. The season has been superb for the Sidmouth girls and boys including a Cornish Tour, many games against local sides and they have built a superb team spirit out of it while having a great time. I look forward to the start of next season at the beginning of September at Blackmore when we will hopefully see some new faces as well.