Carlisle’s Border City Sevens proved a huge success and will be repeated next year, along with other community-themed events.
The rugby union club put on Sevens rugby for men, woman and Colts, but there were other attractions over the weekend to attract the crowds.
For the club, Barry Earl said: “The event was a great success and achieved exactly what the club wanted with people re-engaging after a very difficult pandemic period and an injury-hit season in 2021/22.
“The crowd was fantastic throughout and enjoyed some excellent sevens rugby, live music, good food and drink while the children’s activities were available and popular.
“Thanks has to go to the organising committee, the staff, volunteers and all of our partners who made the day possible and the great success that it was.
“There will be more to come from the club and we hope that by putting on these type of events it will encourage increased youth and senior player participation at the club.”
Penrith had won the opening Colts tournament on Friday night and if there was one disappointment over the weekend it was that the women’s competition didn’t really take off. It ended-up as a couple of internal games against a selection of Carlisle players.
Following the previous week’s creditable performance coming joint second in a very competitive sevens tournament at Tynedale, Nigel Beaty’s Penrith based Halbro 7s side won the Border City Sevens,
Ed Swale and Beaty had done some further recruitment and put out an even stronger squad with loads of pace that proved to be unstoppable on the day. All bar one player was either a current Penrith player or had appeared in the 1st XV at some point.
The tournament took the form of two groups of four all playing each other with the first placed side in one group playing second in the other in the semi final and then a final.
Their first group game was against Austin Friars and proved to be the closest. They saw very little of the ball initially as Friars kept possession well but were able to open the scoring from a scrum when Richard Addison at scrum half was far too quick for them going blind down the touchline and scoring in the corner. He then converted his try with a drop goal off the touchline and they looked to be away.
Friars, though, came back and scored an unconverted try to trail by two points but a sharp looking Jay Rossi jinked his way through and they led 12-5 at half time.
Swale then shuffled his squad and they got into their stride in the second half and with tries from Brad Taylor, Henry Hadfield and a brace from the pacey Darren Lee ran out 34-5 winners.
The first game had been played on the second team pitch and they faced Carlisle next on the wide open spaces of the first team pitch.
Hadfield laid down the marker early on with a 50m break and a one handed pass to Lee who wasn’t going to be caught. A second try followed from Lee and then Rossi, Taylor, Fraser Nicolson and Josh Dowson added tries for a 34-0 half time lead. A further four tries were added in the second half for a 58-0 win.
Up next were another Carlisle side CA2 Boys, who kicked-off straight to Taylor and he ran the ball back and found the gap to dance in for the opening score. Eight tries followed and they had won the game 59-0 and the group at a canter.
They faced the Border Babas, an Annan-based side, in the semi and the game followed the pattern of the previous two with nine tries at regular intervals and a 63-0 scoreline.
The final against Austin Friars Old Boys started with the opposition having the lion’s share of possession. They could manage to keep the ball and create half breaks but they did not have the pace to break down a strong defence.
The Penrith lads then got a bit of ball and used their pace to good effect and with six extra minutes of playing time in the final ran in a total of eight tries for a commanding 52-0 win.
They were clearly the best side there and played some super entertaining rugby and scored a number of really well worked tries
The Halbro squad (with number of tries scored) – Hadfield(4) Luke (2) Reynolds(3) Rossi(4) Fawcett(2) Pamphilon(0) Nicolson(3) Lee(8) Taylor(6) Richardson(1) Addison(3) Dowson(3) McNaughton(3).
