(Photo by John Gichigi/Getty Images)

The Rugby Blog 7s extravaganza hit the Bournemouth event again this year with serious ambitions both on and off the pitch.

A squad was assembled featuring the solid, multi-cap presence of such performers as Jon “the gas” Squire and Oli “the rugby-hater” Smith alongside such new additions as Matt Woods, Jim Backshall, and Will Gallagher to name a few.

Kit was sourced from Tsunami in a fetching cow-print we knew would be a crowd favourite and six months of admin got us all down there, raring to go on Friday night.

As knocked-out quarterfinalists from last year’s event we knew we were in with a shout this year if we could remain fit, healthy, and motivated throughout a gruelling weekend of rugby, camping and drinking.

Unfortunately signs weren’t good initially as shortly after the kit unveiling ceremony a few of the lads got a bit excited about the pear cider which was the only drink available and wound up playing drinking games with dubious forfeits until the early hours.

Nevertheless, the group awoke bleary-eyed and sore-tailed to commence the group stages. Signs were promising as we took an early lead against Old Walcountians RFC and never allowed them into the game to cruise to a comfortable victory. The only sour point was the loss of Joe “rag-doll” Hannaford to a rucking incident that resulted in five stitches in his eyelid. Never one to overly-endear himself to strangers Joe managed to develop a reputation with the local A&E department as “the rude cow” in his hour-long visit there.

With yours truly ferrying the rude cow to the hospital I missed the next group match against Hove Barbarians. Having gone 24-7 down we somehow managed to remember how to play sevens in the second half to win it 26-24 with a particularly difficult conversion by Reyno Norval to thank.

Having already lost their two other group fixtures we knew we were favourites to beat our third opponents, Hammersmith and Fulham Forgotten Heroes, but with the distraction of some soon to be downed pints and basking in the sun we could have been forgiven for taking our foot off the gas. Fortunately we didn’t and ran out comfortable winners to top our group and go through to day two unbeaten.

For the H&F Forgotten Heroes the tournament was about more than the rugby as they were also there to raise funds for a fellow player, Stuart Mangan, who suffered a serious spinal injury last year whilst playing for the club. Throughout the weekend the team were selling necklaces and co-ordinating a cross-bar competition on the main pitch. Should you wish to donate to the cause please click this link.

For The Rugby Blog team, having completed the rugby part of the day successfully it was then onto the partying. Fancy dress for the evening was “anything goes” so to continue our animal theme we decided to go as “speedo animals”. You may wonder why the speedos and not just animals but we found last year that any appeal your fancy dress may have to the opposite sex is instantly augmented if you couple it with speedos.

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