King’s Reach Rugby Sevens Final at Rosslyn Park

King’s 1^st VII Rugby team delivered some outstanding performances over their two days at the prestigious Rosslyn Park National Schools Sevens tournament, to reach the school’s first National Rugby Sevens final in 36 years.

Despite reaching the quarter finals and beyond a number of times, and winning many other significant tournaments over the years, getting to a National final is significant achievement for our incredible group of players.

An incredible 252 schools started the journey on Monday morning, and nine games later our players were preparing to take on Lord Wandsworth College.

We had a very tough start on day one with Dollar Academy, Jess International School and Leicester GS. Winning the group was not guaranteed but the squad played with real control to manage the group and progress to the elimination round.

Durham stood in the way of day two and the quarter finals. We knew a team containing an England international and a number of Newcastle Academy players would be difficult – and so it proved. We went down by 14 points on two occasions in the game before drawing 28-28 at full time. This lead to a Golden score extra time period. The team displayed a fantastic amount of determination under huge pressure to execute the winning try in the corner to see us through.

There are few more physically demanding sports than multiple high impact Sevens games; ice baths in the hotel on Monday night helped ease the legs to some extent, but we knew that mental strength would be the biggest factor throughout the second day.

After three more games and a tied group, we found ourselves in the Bowl on points difference. The semi finals consisted of games against Uppingham and Samuel Whitbread Academy. These were both extremely competitive as you would expect at this stage in a tournament. Despite conceding the first points in both games, the squad showed the composure, accuracy and athleticism to win both games and book a place in the final.

Lord Wandsworth played exceptionally well and the game was closely fought through out. With two minutes to go and the score at 14-19, we felt there would be the opportunity to score the winning points, but with two unfortunate sin bins reducing the team to five players the game slipped away from us.

The squad should be exceptionally proud for representing themselves and the school in a way that will live long in the memory.