WEYMOUTH’S well-earned reputation for hosting sporting events drew the Royal Navy back for the RNRU Beach Festival, bringing thrills and very few spills of the ball, writes Jamie Campbell-Baldwin.

Following on from the success of the previous tournaments, a gathering of eight competitive teams, this time including the inaugural attendance of two women’s teams, arrived on one of the hottest recorded days of the year to ply their rugby skills.

The matches took the form of five players a side playing four minutes a half, which may not seem much but due to the effort required of playing on sand the teams were grateful for the rolling subs rule.

Scrums and lineouts were not in force with tap and go the order of the day for any restarts. The emphasis was on fast, expansive, open rugby.

Played across two pitches, the teams were placed in two pools and once the results were in, the top two placed sides of each pool would vie for the cup and the bottom two, the plate.

Teams who had appeared at previous tournaments, like HMNB Portsmouth and HMS Heron, played the tactical game using players conservatively ensuring they could last the whole match and indeed the tournament.

Teams less familiar with beach rugby went all out and soon suffered the consequences.

As play continued through the day, people were updated with RNRU community rugby coach, Dave Wakefield, giving a running commentary on the participants and the scores.

HMS Queen Elizabeth provided the only ship’s side, with the Naval establishments providing the largest number of teams.

The Royal Marines were represented by 40 Commando and the students from the University Royal Navy Units also entered a squad.

The two women’s sides represented the training establishments HMS Collingwood and HMS Sultan.

On the way to the plate final, HMNB Portsmouth beat the students 4-2 meeting they met HMS Sultan, who had defeated the sailors of HMS Queen Elizabeth in emphatic style 5-0, in the final.

In a gripping clash the teams traded tries, however HMS Sultan found another gear to score two unanswered tries for the engineers with a final score of 4-2.

Sandwiched between the contact rugby of the men saw a series of exhibition tag matches between the two women’s sides.

Producing some accurate passing and running lines, the women produced some exciting rugby.

The Cup final saw the highly rated HMS Heron meet the robust 40 Cdo in a bruising encounter.

Both finalist teams came within a whisker of losing out in the semis, each edging a win by one try against HMS Seahawk and HMS Collingwood respectively.

The final was played with passion and the competitive spirit of the players was clearly on display but the sun was shining on the airmen who beat the Royal Marines with a flattering scoreline of five tries to one meaning HMS Heron were he festival

winners.

* The RNRU would like to thank QinetiQ for sponsoring the event with transformation director (Land, Maritime, Weapons), Phil Metcalfe presenting the medals and cup alongside RNRU Vice President Commodore Nick Roberts.