A bumper week of training was followed up by a bumper weekend of results. For a start, the senior mens and ladies squads headed up to Skövde for the first qualification round of the Sevens Swedish Championship. If either teams want to make it all the way to the SM veckan in Norrköping, the qualifiers are the starting point! The weather would be a mixture of sun, rain, sleet, snow and all played on a pitch as hard as the elements. But a great set up by skövde, with live streaming and good organisation made the event a bright experience. Both squads had their usual ups and downs on their way to the finals, but all in all both squads did what they had to do and the finals for the mens teams would be a classic Gothenburg derby match between GRF and Spartacus. Meanwhile, despite a close call against a strong Vrk effort, the ladies would play Kalmar Södra in their final. The ladies would be out first. having put a 25-5 result against Kalmar in the group stage, the only question would be if the ladies could pull out the same performance in the 20 minute final. Considering the squad was made up of 9 forwards and 1 back player, the squad was wondering how their fitness would hold out against a younger and more backs orientated Kalmar. the ladies would leave everything on the park and walk away with a 45 points to nil result. The mens final would follow against Spartacus. This would be the first time Spartacus have signed up for the sevens qualification and they showed their mettle by putting a polished performance against Sevens experts Vänersborg , to reach the final. A tough game with both teams throwing everything except the kitchen sink, or possibly including it. Unfortunately one of the players was asked to leave the park due to two heavy hits to the head.Very good decision by the officials which shows that safety in the game is first and foremost. GRF senior men ended the day with their best performance and expect for a few forced errors, basically had the game from beginning to end without losing much momentum. The end result would be 36-14 to the GRF lads.
meanwhile, whilst all this was going on, the senior citizens were down in lund.... The Gothenburg Oldboys went down to Lund with a joint team (West Coast Masters) to play in the Valhallan Trophy. After two games against Skåne Oldboys and Dracula RC from Romania our Oldboys won the Tournament. Great play by Håkan Helgesson, Christian Dayment, Magnus Andersson and Leo Molinas. We also had The old Frölunda players Peter Bram and Mike McMahon playing in the Oldboys 50+game. A day full of rugby, old friends and lots of fun.
So to summarise, a grand weekend for GRF! Braggin' rights for at least one shandy tops!