Last weekend saw a historic milestone for BSP rugby, with the U15 team reaching the semi-finals of a major schools/international tournament at the annual Lisbon 7s tournament. Teams from around Europe, from as far afield as Latvia and Ukraine, as well as various representative teams from other countries such Portugal, Belgium, Gibraltar, France and the UK converged on Portugal for the two-day festival, held at the impressive facilities of the University of Lisbon.
There were 16 teams in the U15 competition, with four pools of four teams playing round robin matches on the first day. The BSP was pitted against three strong Portuguese sides and began the campaign with two strong victories of 29 – 5 and 34 – 19. Despite the opposition showing excellent handling and tackling skills, the BSP players proved to be too strong in the breakdown and too quick when attacking the gaps. In the last game of the day the BSP came up against a very strong Portuguese club side who clearly played at a high level, and it was always going to be a difficult task. As it happened, the teams were evenly matched throughout the whole game, with the opposition pulling away by two tries at the very end as the BSP boys started to tire. However, two victories out of three meant that the team had qualified for the quarter-finals, and were to face the Gibraltar representative team the next morning. It was another very close game, but this time it was the BSP that came out on top, narrowly defeating the Gibraltarians by one try, meaning a place in the semi-finals.
As luck would have it, the draw meant that our boys had to face the Portuguese team from the previous day for a place in the final. Unfortunately it was one match too far for the BSP team and, despite their very best efforts, they were unable to keep up with the opposition and lost the match by three tries.
Whilst disappointed not to make the final, making the semi-finals at a major rugby festival was a fantastic achievement and the boys were, rightly, very proud.
Acknowledgement must go to all the players for their efforts – a huge congratulations to our team for what they achieved.
