Most of the players (James Allen, Alfie Morton, Teifion Jones, Rhys Andrews and Nick Hall) arrived on the Friday evening after a highly nutritious pit stop at McDonald’s and watched the vet’s final with a beer or two. The evening consisted of a DJ and many a cold beverage making sure the players were in peak physical condition for the following day’s play, writes Alfie Morton.

With an 8:00 o’clock wake up time to try and watch the England game the boys woke up feeling rather sorry for themselves. We welcomed Tim Price, Alex Jackowski and Dan Bullimore with their much needed fresh faces (despite their lack of pre-tournament liquid intake). Before we knew it, we were starting our first game against the Drunken Flamingos, the game started with the Flamingos looking dominant and had half time approaching Gosford were down by three scores. The introduction of Alex Jackowski at half time saw us fight back to put on a good game. Some great play by Pricey putting everyone in for tries all day saw Gosford win 20-15.

We had lots of time between games on the day which saw the boys quickly go and eat some food and stay hydrated. To our surprise our next game was on a full sized pitch (not the usual 50 meters super social pitch) against the Eggchasers Bin Juice. Now used the variances of 7s rugby Gosford started the game well and finished it stronger. With some actually pretty good rugby being played we finished the game 29-0 thanks to tries by Rhys (who was called a greedy ball-hogger by Jacko and Alfie for not passing on a 3 man overlap) and Alfie.

Game three time and now 2 from 2 Gosford regrouped after what Teifion called a team cuddle session. The boys had a game against Rugby Jugby, which ended up being the game of the day, back on the full sized pitch playing into Gosford’s advantage and which we won on tries converted. Dave Allen, back in black for the first time in over a decade, joined his brother's side for the final group match and the knockout rounds. GAB, 12-15 down, in the dying moments of the game dug deep with rallying cries from Bully saw Rhys (yes, this bloke again) score a well worked switch move before converting his own try to make it 19-15 to Gosford and an unbeaten group stage.

Now into the play offs Gosford found themselves against Frosty 7s. With a big gap in between games Gosford found themselves sore and tired when they played Frosty 7s (a specialist 7s team who have already played a lot of tournaments this year - seemed a touch unfair in the 'super social 7s draw...). The stiffness saw them go up by a few tries, but Gosford did not give up and scored a couple of tries in response. A disallowed try from Alfie (in what he calls the best try ever scored) caused uproar from the crowds that were watching when it wasn’t given. The game finished 5 tires to 2 and, with that, Gosford’s participation was over, they focused on re-hydrating and watching the competitions come to a close.

Feeling proud of the performances the lads had a nice rest of their evening with a few cold beers and some very sore bodies.

Big thanks to North Dorset RFC for running a great tournament and putting on a fun event! We hope to see you again in 2025!