Great run for rugby carnival
THE annual Townsville Festival of Rugby 7s continued over the weekend with hundreds of players donning their most colourful gear and taking the field.
Hosted by Townsville District Rugby Union (TDRU), 14 men’s teams and 11 women’s teams took part in the action, which was a record number of teams in the women’s competition.
TDRU director of rugby Dan Withers declared the festival a massive achievement for grassroots rugby.
“The standard has been high, the weather has been warm and we’ve seen some awesome rugby 7s action,” Withers said.
“There have been some really good tries, really good defence and some real arm wrestles, particularly today in the men’s and women’s finals.”
Withers said the festival had grown into something that was more than just a celebration of high quality rugby.
“It’s become a carnival atmosphere tournament where it’s about playing at a high level, but it’s also about family and friends reconnecting, people from out of town coming back to visit their mates, and getting together to have a good time on the field,” he said.
About 140 teams are expected to take the field over the three-week festival, with the Mini 7s (U8, U9 and U10) set to play next Friday night and Teenage 7s (U13, U14, U15 and U14 girls) scheduled for Saturday.
Withers said the final week of the festival drew the highest number of applications.
“(The teenage 7s) is our biggest tournament numberswise of the whole festival, it’s just exploded,” Withers said.
“We’re getting up towards 50 teams next week, so we actually had to start turning teams away to fit it all in one day.”
Another highlight of the weekend was the Fastest Player in 7s Dash on Sunday, which saw the region’s quickest male and female speedsters go head-to-head.