Cranleigh School overcame Ipswich School with a score on the final play to clinch a seven-try Cup final of the Hampton School Founders’ Day Sevens, while the home side took the Plate against Bishop Wand School.
This tournament is regularly one of the higher quality midweek events in the earlier part of the schools’ Sevens season. As well as the host school, prior winners Cranleigh (finalists here in the past five years and multiple recent Rosslyn Park champions), Brighton College and John Fisher were all back. Appearing for the first time were Ipswich School, who have had a successful 15 a side campaign in the National competitions, reaching the semi-finals in both the U18 Vase and the U15 Cup, and perennial Sevens powerhouse Epsom College, who despite being only a few miles away have not historically prioritised this event. Adding further strength to the entry and also making their debut in the tournament were RFU ACE League schools Bishop Wand School (DiSe partners with London Irish) and Gordon’s School (similarly partnered with Harlequins).
The group stages were closely contested, with the identity of the four teams progressing to the Cup and Plate finals in doubt until the closing stages. In Group 1, Hampton looked dominant with wins over Gordon’s (DiSe partners with Harlequins), Hurstpierpoint and Brighton before playting what amounted to a semi-final against Ipswich who had lost narrowly to Brighton but had built an impressive points difference from their next two games. The Suffolk school repeatedly came back from being a try down to level the try count at four apiece and win the game on conversions and the group on points difference, leaving Hampton to contest the Plate final.
In Group 2 Cranleigh were largely untroubled in wins over Bishop Wand, John Fisher and St Benedict’s, but still needed to avoid defeat in their final game against regular opponents Epsom in order to clinch a place in the Cup final. That turned out to be a tight battle, with the scores level at 12-12 late in the second half. It looked as if Epsom might take the lead but the ball was lost in the act of scoring, giving Cranleigh a 5-metre scrum. With Epsom fielding a powerful front row, possession was by no means assured, but when a free-kick was awarded Cranleigh scrum-half Will Owen took a tap and broke on the blind-side before going the length of the pitch to score under the posts and add the conversion. Although Epsom drove downfield from the restart to add a converted try, time ran out with the scores level. This gave Bishop Wand, winners earlier by 22-14 over Epsom, the opportunity to take second place in the Group and a place in the Plate final, and the DiSe school comfortably ran out winners over John Fisher.
The Cup Final did not disappoint, producing arguably the highest standard of play of the day from both sides. Cranleigh were quick out of the blocks and threatened to put the game out of sight with two early converted tries, but Ipswich stuck admirably to the task in hand and levelled things up at 14-14 at the interval. Ipswich looked the more likely to take the lead as they dominated territory and possession in the opening minutes of the second half, but tenacious defence by Cranleigh kept them out and a turnover saw them break out and go the length of the pitch to score under the posts. Ipswich however were not finished, once again levelling things up at 21-21, and were pressing to find the winning score with an overlap created on the Cranleigh 22, but the final pass did not go to hand and Cranleigh regathered the loose ball and ran it back to score under the posts. There was time only for Owen’s successful conversion as the final whistle followed.
Over in the 2nd VII competition the contests had been equally entertaining, a superb group stage began proceedings before the top two teams, Gordon’s and Hampton, went head to head in a play-off final. Sadly for the hosts it was to be Gordon’s that came out on top, with a number of players putting their hands up for selection ahead of Friday’s night Gordon’s 7s.
By Peter Crawshaw
