Newquay Surf Sevens '09

Sunday, 2nd August 2009

Over the weekend of the 17th and 18th of July 2009 12 likely lads represented OQs in Newquay for the 2009 Surf Sevens.

The old boys had been invited to attend the tournament alongside OPM – Jamie Hutton’s old rugby club from Plymouth in recognition of one year since Jamie’s passing. It was to prove a very fitting weekend to celebrate the big man – plenty of surf, ladies (not beautiful surf ladies, rather the big scary female rugby player type), beer and sunshine (in between the majority of bad weather in the form of gales and rain!).

OQs got drawn with the OPM jesters alongside them in their group. Coincidence? I think not. In total there were 48 teams in the president’s cup comprising of 16 groups with 3 teams each. The group winners would enter the cup, runners up the bowl, and the wooden spoon contenders would enter the plate. After a few iterations, a result of attempting to find some pace to take with us – before eventually realising none of us had any, the final team sheet for the weekend was finalised.

In no particular order (most talented at the top):

• Matthew Lee
• Jon Prosser
• Tom Gelder
• Alex Hudson
• Olly Stewart
• Ed Furnvial
• Phill Triggol
• James Morris
• Simon Turner
• John Reyland
• Paul Morrel
• Andy Williams

A kit of sorts was hurried together in the form of our Jamie Hutton memorial game shirts from back in November last year, whilst the majority of the players braved the Friday night traffic to travel from as far afield as London to get to the ground. Upon arrival Jim, Sally and Ewan Hutton were already present in their camper.

Friday night was spent reminiscing over some cold ones at the tent before the chaps headed into town for a late one at the tournament sponsoring night club. We ended up bumping into all the OPM players so needless to say it we all got a bit tipsy.

Saturday morning (what was left of it) was spent walking around what some people would call the main tournament of the weekend, watching the likes of the British Army playing. However the weather turned fowl so we headed for the shelter of a local establishment where we remained for the rest of the afternoon. During the day more of our mini barmy army supports club, and straggling players arrived to eventually produce quite a substantial OQs presence. As acting captain for the weekend I insisted we prepare properly for the tournament the next day by buying an outrageously sized round at the bar before heading in to town again to experience another one of Newquay’s finest.

Kick off on Sunday was to be 10:30 against the local favourites on pitch one in front of the home crowd against the Newquay Hornets. All involved played brilliantly to be level on tries at 2 a piece, however one missed conversion meant we lost out by 2 points. However this proved to be a massive boost to the lads, as we were expecting to be more involved for the social aspect as the majority of us had never played together before. But we proved that we were going to be contenders to go a decent distance in this tournament.

The next game was against our friends OPM, after quite a lot of banter to start with it was a fiercely contested battle. One that naturally OQs came out on top of by some margin! As runners up of the group this meant that we would be going through to the bowl competition. This meant that we had made life hard for ourselves as we could have been in contention for some silverware in the plate; however we were put into a decent tournament now.

Into the last 16 we came up against a Loughborough Universities old boy’s team. This team had a couple of fair sized ‘units’ in their side compared to our average body type of ‘half pint’ (most of us blame school dinners for that). Never the less with a crowd combining OQ and OPM supporters on the banks, who now had a sense of expectation placed on us we took to the field and again put out a stunning performance running in victorious. By this point I think everyone in the team had scored a try, and we were all starting to feel it after playing three games of rugby with nearly the same amount of nights out under belts. We rallied together and wondered off to get a ‘rabbit’ burger and some ‘stinging nettle’ cider to provide us with some energy before we watched the two OPM’s teams play each other in their quarter final game of the wooden spoon comp (aka the plate).

It was then our turn to run out for a fourth time in the same day to face our opponents in the quarter finals. Who at first looked to be wearing dinner jackets, turned out to be some very fit (in a health and fitness kind of way) lads wearing the stereotypical, "I’m a rugby lad" skin tight shirts decorated with a bow tie. Playing against a team whose name we couldn’t pronounce we could tell this game was going to be a tough one. OQs let in a couple of early tries and the spirits started to drop, but the crowd picked their heads up and the lads held them out for the rest of the half. The second half was a competitive performance, again with them scoring another try however we finished in style by scoring the last try of the game in the corner.

All in all I think everyone involved had a brilliant weekend, and I would like to thank all the players for coming down and putting in so much effort. We played and partied just like Jamie would have wanted and ended up only 2 games away from some prize money and silverware, a brilliant effort from a scratch team spanning several age groups.

Special thanks go to the OQs Society for paying the teams entrance fees for the tournament, and to the Hutton’s and all of those who travelled just to support us.

Matthew Lee

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