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Find Rugby Now Festival 2015 Review & Photos

FRN7s2015_-12On 25 July 2015 Find Rugby Now held its fourth annual rugby festival, which featured rugby 7s, 10s and mixed touch rugby competitions at the Wasps Rugby Club in London.

The festival featured over 800 players composing over 50 rugby teams from all over the UK and Europe and offered over £2,000 of prize money across the competitions along with trophies and some great prizes from Bounce Balls and PPS Nutrition.

Apache Braves and Bubbles took home the £500 cash prizes for coming top in the men’s and women’s Elite 7s Tournaments, respectively. Full list of winners and finalists provided below.

Next year’s Festival will once again be held in July in London and registration will open soon. Check out the Festival website for more information.

Festival

FRN7s2015_-38This year’s Festival included a variety of entertainment for both spectators and players alike, with free performances and activities for the whole family, including a Brazilian Drum Band, the FRN Cheerleaders, Rhino Cage Rugby, a Red Bull Car and Red Bull drinks, PPS Nutrition and City Strongman competitions (which included some amazing prizes for the winners), PPS Nutrition protein samples, adult bouncy castle and face painting (yes, all of these were free)!

IMG_5295The tournament also featured a military themed after-party featuring DJ Charlotte Devaney that played tunes well into the night accompanied by the sexy dancing of The Narni Shakers, which were a big hit at the after-party with their fire dancing.

The party was better than ever with DJ Charlotte Devaney keeping the party rocking until 12am and many party-goers were thankful that they had booked to camp so there was no need to worry about getting home in the late hours.

The weather did not disappoint and despite some threats of showers, it was a perfect day for playing rugby. The free Red Bull drinks and awesome food from BodyPlus Nutrition (which included nutrition packed options for players) helped players and spectators stay energised throughout the day.

FRN7s2015_-76The V.I.P. guests were entertained throughout the event with their own private bar and food buffet, which was well placed on top of an awesome double-decker bus, YBWS, which came all the way from Cardiff to take part in the event.

FRN was pleased to be joined by several VIP guests at the Festival, which included our tournament sponsors and several former English and Welsh Internationals.

Find Rugby Now Director and Tournament organiser, Ellaine Gelman, said:

“We couldn’t be happier with the weather and the turnout. The standard of rugby is excellent and everyone is having a great time.”

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Spectators and players also benefited from a variety of food and drink options throughout the Festival, which included a Pimms and Lemonade Marquee, Wasps Rugby Club bar, Double Decker Bus Bar, BBQ, BodyPlus Nutrition Stand and an Ice Cream Van.

Please see below for Festival results, photos and the FRN 7s official video. We hope to see all of you back next year!

2015 Festival Video

7s Competitions

This year’s 7s tournament featured very competitive men’s and women’s sides across the competitions. We were especially thrilled to have such a good turnout from the women’s sides, which allowed us to host social and elite rugby 7s competitions.

Men’s 7s Results

IMG_5201Sixteen men’s teams took part in the men’s Elite and Open competitions with a further eight taking part in the Social competition.

Teams included the Apache Braves, Breakthrough, Pursuit Warriors, Oxfam Crusaders, Sherrards Assassins, The Seven Dwarves, London Exiles, HCo Seagulls, Projecx Waterboys, SJC Old Boys and OMT Honey Badgers, among others.

There were also international teams that traveled down from Belgium, France and Amsterdam!

The winner of the Elite Tournament was Apache Braves, which included some experienced players like Brazilian international Juliano Fiori. Pursuit Warriors came in as runners-up showing real passion and aggression on the pitch.

The winner of the Open Tournament was the Projecx Waterboys with the seasoned Sherrards Assassins coming in as runners-up.

The winner of the Social Tournament was The Honey Badgers and our friends from Milton Keynes were the runners-up.

Women’s 7s Results

IMG_5189The women’s competitions featured 11 women’s teams competing in the elite and social competitions.

The standard in the elite category was impressive with the Moody Cows, Thunderbirds, Bubbles, FRN 7s Ladies and Scotty’s Little Tigers putting out very competitive squads, with strong performances by all of the teams throughout the day.

The social competition was heavily contested and included Hampstead, London Pumas, Rhino Cage Rugby 7s, FRN Development, Harlequin Ladies and Medway Ladies.

The winner of the Elite Tournament was Bubbles (an experienced invitational side composed of ex-Welsh international players) with the seasoned Moody Cows (2012 Tournament Winners) coming in as runners-up.

The winner of the Social Tournament was London Pumas, an invitational side based in London but Hampstead certainly put up a great fight in the final and showed why they have been so consistently promoted this past season.

10s Competition

IMG_5203This year was the second year that we included rugby 10s into the Festival and it did not disappoint!

Ten teams competed in competition, which included a mix of rugby club sides and invitational social teams, including Hammersmith & Fulham, Millwall Rugby Club, ALF and Wasps Rugby Club.

There were also several barbarians side from outside the UK from Belgium, France and Holland, which added a great dynamic to the competition.

Despite some strong performances from several teams throughout the tournament, including the Inglorious Bwstards, the winner of the competition was ALF and the runner-up was the home side, Wasps Rugby Club.

Mixed Touch Competition

IMG_5204Once again we welcomed mixed touch rugby teams to take part in a Touch Rugby competition, which was open to teams composed of men and women.

The touch tournament was enjoyed both by strictly touch rugby teams and rugby 7s teams that were already taking part in other rugby competitions and there was some fun touch rugby played by a selection of sides.

The winner of the competition was Twickers Tornadoes, which impressed with their huge squad and commitment to the game. The FRN Grasshoppers were the runners-up.

Player’s of the Tournament

FRN7s2015_-25Players of the tournament were selected and presented with prizes from FRN, PPS Nutrition and Bounce Balls.

The men’s 7s player of the tournament was Gavin Dampies from Apache Raiders.

The women’s 7s player of the tournament was Bethan Dainton from Moody Cows.

Charity Partners

FRN7s2015_-75FRN was proud to work with several charities to raise money on the day for some great causes. This included Scotty’s Little Soldiers and Oxfam. Both of these charities put out some strong sides on the day.

Spectators and players had the opportunity to visit the charity’s marquees, buy some memorabilia and meet some of their player representatives.

We hope that the funds and the awareness raised on the day for the charity will help contribute to the support of families of fallen servicemen and women as well as raise some well needed funds for fighting global poverty.

We were also thrilled that Bubbles and the Twickers Tornadoes both decided to donate part of their cash prize winnings to charities that were represented by other teams at the Festival.

Bubbles donated some of their prize money to McMillon Cancer, which is the chosen charity of the Moody Cows (who came in 2nd as very worthy runners-up) and Twickers Tornadoes donated some of their prize money to the Aaron Lewis Foundation (winners of the 10s tournament).

Special Thanks

FRN would like to extend their gratitude to the following companies/individuals:

Zoti, our tournament partner, for providing fantastic rugby shirts for our staff.
Rhino Cage Rugby for all of their help in the run up to the tournament.
Craig McIntosh for his First Aid and physio work on the day and being so helpful throughout.
The George for sponsoring some tournament prizes.
YBWS for sponsoring the VIP area and taking such good care of our VIP guests.
PPS Nutrition for their amazing competition and providing some great tournament prizes.
Rhino Cage Rugby for all of their help in the run up to the tournament.
Red Bull and Bounce Balls for providing much-needed energy and protein.
BodyPlus Nutrition for serving amazing healthy food throughout the day.
Jonathan Sandler for his great physio work on the day.
Ruth Lilley and Martin Sylvester for taking amazing photos throughout the tournament.
Supreme Engraving for providing quality trophies time after time.
Lusum Rugby for providing the match balls.
DJ Charlotte Devaney and The Narni Shakers for fantastic evening entertainment.
Wasps Rugby Club for providing us with a great space to host our tournament.
Netta and Mick from Wasps for helping us make the tournament possible.

Photos

More photos can be found on our FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/FRN7s



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