By Leipziger
May 6 2007

Captain Ollie Phillips led the host side to a win in the Falcons Sevens tournament today at Kingston Park, with four tries in the final and a hat-trick in the semi showing him as one of the team’s top performers alongside Tim Visser, Michael Young and Luke Fielden. Tynedale opened the competition with a win over the Templers in Group A, and in the first match in Group B the Monkeys, a late replacement for Boroughmuir, defeated Biggar. It was then time for the Falcons to take the field against the Kaiviti Crusaders, a big aggressive side of South Pacificans, and in the second half the side in pink (Newcastle) ran away with the game and seven tries, including a brace from Young, earned a 47-0 win.

Tom May and Martin Shaw’s Canterbury Crew won their first game against the Tigers before losing to Biggar, wrapped around a 31-7 win for the Crusaders against the Templers. The Falcons then went into a crunch match with Tynedale.

Despite an early chance for Visser, Tynedale were first on the scoresheet after intercepting a pass and cutting through the Falcons defence, however the Falcons pulled away with Ralph Smith scoring twice, as the Corbridge side could not keep up with the pace and creativity of Phillips, Fielden and Scott Riddell and were downed 38-7. This match was followed by a tight win for the Tigers against the Monkeys.

The Falcons were afforded little rest as the Templers stood in the way of a semi-final place, but were made short work of as Visser scored quickly by twisting past the defence. Smith and Fielden were next to score, before a spell of Templers pressure led to a kick behind charged down in-goal and our opponents fell on their only score of the game.

Alex Tait’s dummy brought the fourth try before half time, and two tries from James Hamer and another from the snappy Young brought another 47 point haul. The Falcons eventual semi-final opponents Tigers stole their spot in the last four with a defeat of Biggar, and in a topsy-turvy match the Kaiviti Crusaders took second spot in Group A, beating Tynedale 12-19 despite the latter taking the lead in the second half. The Crusaders opponents would be Canterbury Crew, who beat the Monkeys in the final group match.

In the semi-final, the Falcons were denied an early try against the Tigers due to a forward pass, but wouldn’t be denied as Ollie Phillips ran in two scores before James Hamer’s break on halfway put the pinks 19-0 up at the interval. Phillips completed his hat-trick just after half-time, and further tries from Alex Tait, Michael Young and finally Tim Visser sealed the 47-0 rout, booking the Falcons a place in the final.

Their opponents would be, as in their opening match of the day, Seru Rabeni’s Kaiviti Crusaders, who came back after allowing the Canterbury Crew to score the first try with four of their own. Tom May did lead a two-try comeback, to the loudest roar of the day so far, but his side were defeated 22-17.

Before the final, the finals of the County Plate, Falcons Plate and County Sevens were played, and were won by Medicals, Tynedale and Team Northumbria (beating Gateshead’s conquerors Morpeth) respectively.

The outstanding Fielden scored the opening try of the final with a run from halfway before the Crusaders pounced on a loose ball, brought the play left and the Falcons ran out of defenders to allow their opponents to equalise. The speedy captain Phillips then came into his own with two tries, the second from a scrum, although a second Crusaders try before half time kept minds focused at 17-12.

In the end however, there was no cause for concern, and Phillips bettered his semi-final haul with two more scores, the referee blowing the full-time whistle straight after the final try to signal a 31-12 win and tournament victory for the Falcons in pink. The mother of a poster on this board (not me) was on hand to present the trophy.

The final action of the day was the Legends Match, but here I have to be critical and say the game felt a little anti-climatic. First of all, the main focus of the day were the tournaments, which were now finished, secondly, the teams were made to stand on the pitch and wait for about five minutes for the cheerleaders to finish, and finally the teams for this match were not read out, as others had been occasionally. It was just announced quietly that the Falcons team included Richard Arnold, Steve O’Neill, Martin Wilson and Billy Balshen, and probably some others. James Isaacson and Tom May were spotted too.

A lot of the crowd had already left, and the West Stand was rather sparsely populated as the Legends beat the Clems 41-12. However, the whole game felt rather flat, as if it was just an afterthought, not a full part of the day as it was last year.

The game was probably moved to the end of the day to prevent a repeat of last year, when it was held in the afternoon and a lot of people came for the Legends match and left afterwards rather than sticking around for the Sevens finals. Today, the ground emptied in the run-up, and there were few left at the end. There was not the buoyant atmosphere of the Legends game in 2006.

A point to consider for the organisers and schedulers perhaps, however it was a great day and hopefully the Festival of Rugby will grow more successful again in 2008.