Moray House lift The Carl Waugh Trophy in a closely contested Final
Words and Pictures by Jackie MacKenzie.
Leith RFC’s Sevens Tournament 2018, which took place at Academy Park in Leith at the weekend, added to the already anticipated “Silver Saturday” of rugby planned at BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh on Saturday.
Twelve teams, from across all three Scottish Rugby’s regions, battled it out for The Carl Waugh Trophy, originally presented to Leith Academicals RFC, back in the early 1970’s for their first 7’s tournament, by Councillor Cornelius Waugh in memory of his late father.
The day started at 12 noon, just as the clouds parted, with a match-up between Leith XV and touring side, Merton RFC – a visiting team from London, led by Captain Adam Cheek and Club President Jack Canniff. This was followed by a junior rugby demonstration by Leith Hawks and Leith Vixens.
The first of the matches in the Sevens tournament got under way on Pitch 1 at 12.30pm between Boroughmuir Bears RFC and LFEA RFC, who stood in at the last minute for Inverleith, finishing with a win of 24-19 to LFEA.
The tournament progressed smoothly, and at 3pm the final for the Shield kicked off between Edinburgh Napier University RFC and Walkerburn RFC – Napier winning over Walkerburn with a final score of 36–7.
Next came the decider for The Bowl between Leith RFC and Merchistonians RFC, finishing with a win of 42-7 for Merchistonians.
Then came the clash for 3rd place, and the Leith 7’s Plate, between LFEA RFC and Queensferry RFC – with a final score of 29-7 to LFEA RFC.
That just left the Cup Final, and the all important lifting of The Carl Waugh Trophy. After a very entertaining day of rugby, Linlithgow RFC and Moray House RFC battled hard for the coveted trophy and played a very close game, with some excellent sevens rugby on show. Linlithgow initially looked the stronger side, but narrowly lost out after a late surge from Moray in the last few minutes of the match. Final score 22-19 to Moray House RFC, repeating their win of The Carl Waugh Trophy from back in 2015.
It was back to the club house then for the awards presentations, before much merriment and the traditional “Calcutta Cup Boat Race on the Bridge” – Merton RFC finally registering a win!
One last mention went to Walkerburn RFC who were awarded “Best Dressed” team.
With our usual rugby correspondent on ‘other duties’, Linlithgow’s Jackie MacKenzie stepped up to the plate to attend the Leith Sevens and put together a report – her very first – for The ER at extremely short notice. With two pitches in constant use – and no ‘notice of article’ – we think she has made the best of a difficult ‘introduction’. Our thanks to her.
Images from the tournament will appear here in the near future.
