Herts U17s shine at inter-county sevens

Hertfordshire's U17 girls did the county proud today, battling back from an apparently impossible position to akmost steal the four-county sevens tournament held at Old Albanians as a curtain raiser for the England/Scotland international.

They began the tournament looking very like the scratch team that they were. Unlike Eastern Counties, and possibly other teams, Herts had had no pre-tournament training and had been selected on the basis of the first ten girls to step forward.

In practice it wasn't a bad side on paper, but based on the first half of their first pool game against Surrey you'd have thought they had barely met before. 10-0 down at half time required sharp words and rapid team changes (Megan Williams coming on - and staying on for the rest of the tournament!), and a revitalised Herts then clawed their way back into the game to finish with a 10-10 draw.

The next game against Eastern Counties saw a better performance, but no points on the board by either side at half time - Hannah Marques just going into touch in the corner before the whistle. However, Herts finally broke through in the second half to win fairly comfortably 10-0.

The final game was against an under-strength Essex - but again Herts fell asleep, and were 10-0 down minutes into the first half. Rousing themselves they pulled level by the interval and the injection of fresh legs in the second half saw the girls in green storm away to win 25-10 - thus securing first place in the pool. Second place was a near run thing, Surrey only denying Eastern Counties by snatching a draw just before the end.

So two unbeaten teams met in the final on the main pitch. An early score by Herts was quickly cancelled out and with our girls making a series of dreadful handling errors half time came with Surrey holding a commanding - some said unassailable - 20 points to 5 lead.

But Herts weren't finished. A far better second half showing saw the Surrey lead gradually whittled away. With the clock ticking down the score drew level, and then Herts snatched what seemed a dramatic winner - 25-20 with less than a minute left!

But Surrey were not finished. Almost straight from the restart they drew level, and as the clock ran down it was Surrey who were battering on the Herts line. The last play of the game seemed to have the Herts defence overwhelmed - until Megan intercepted a pass virtually on her own line, dodged and sprinted the length of the field to touch down and "win" a hugely exciting sevens game.

Unfortunately the final horn had been blown - and under the unusual the rules of the event the game ended when time ran out, not when the ball went dead, so the game was declared a draw.

But Herts U17s remain unbeaten at sevens - and we've beaten Surrey before!