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On 22 August 2005 the Hands gingerly dipped their toe back in the waters of the 7-a-side code. The last experience had not been a good one: a humiliation at the Edinburgh Northern 7s which had got us a special mention for being awful in the Edinburgh local press.
However, as reigning Teddy's 10s champions it would have been inappropriate to turn down the invitation to the Teddy's 7s, and so we turned up. Not all of us turned up, mind - Matt Morgan and Dom Turner have recently gained personal sponsorship from British Gas, which entitles them to as much Vegetarian Pizza as they like (until further notice). And Whibley straggled up late, shamefaced, despite having the least distance to travel. Still, it didn't matter, as the remaining squad was strong and plentiful - and boosted by the useful ringing abilities of Chris Heck (former Teddys' 10s winner with the Hands 2003) and Sam The Great White Fijian, who has played at Andover with Ted for some time, and is not Fijian. Despite this, the Hands got off to a fairly lacklustre start, shipping two early tries again a big, mobile Radley Serpents side, who looked like they knew what they were doing. The Hands weren't playing good 7s, and they were too keen to take contact and turn the ball over. But the Hands' tenacity was a strong point, and all five tries that we leaked were chased down bravely, limiting Radley to only one conversion. On the other hand, our three consolation tries were all converted. The first came from a nice break by SPNT, the second was a penalty try won by Hullis for getting tripped up, and the third was a tidy-up effort by Haworth after Chris Heck had made an impressive break from distance. It looked as though the Hands might get better, but it was a false dawn as the next match against Team Black Mamba was a shambles. Although the Hands put the odd nice passage of play together they couldn't help but leak tries. A consolation effort from Sam prevented us getting nilled, but that was as much as we could say. The three assembled Hands lady-folk were not impressed with us, and went back to reading their magazines, and gossiping about probably women's issues, bubble baths and stuff like that. Then the Hands' fortunes changed. While we lolled in the shade, escaping the blazingly hot summer sunshine, we won our first game - a default victory over the suddenly-defunct White Lightning. This was truly a result to go down in the Hands annals - a 7s game won, at last! Rarae avis indeed, and the Hands camp went discreetly wild with excitement, and continued to sunbathe. Thus it was with the benefit of a 2 hour R&R session that we approached our third game, against Team McEwen, with Wilder quietly expressing the feeling that he would really rather like to win a game before going home, if at all possible. Team McEwen were a useful prospect, and for a while the game was tight. After some edgy exchanges in the first few minutes Hullis found Pool unmarked in space, and Pool cantered in to the line from halfway for a fairly easy score. Another score was added by Wilder underneath the posts after a mazy run, which he duly converted himself. Although Team McEwen scored 5 points to bring themselves back into it before half time, Chris Heck replied by scored a massive moral victory for the Hands with one of the finest hits of the day, audibly knocking the breath out of a man and cutting off a 3 on 1 overlap at the same time. The Hands were thus in good fettle by half time, and then really opened up on McEwen during the second half with one of their finest sessions of 7s. Tackles were made and much ball was won at the breakdown, with the result that the tries began to flow. First came a pretty good effort by Pool after the ball came wide very quickly, allowing him to "turn on the afterburners" as SPNT put it. The unfortunate opposite number was left on his knees in front of the Hands bench, and SPNT kindly offered him a drink of water which he humbly accepted. Next a great try from Chris Heck through the middle, and lastly another break from Pool after he accepted a lovely switch set up by Sam. These tries were punctuated by another from McEwen, despite a despairing and very effective tap tackle from Hullis, who injured himself in the process. Final score 35-17. The Hands had qualified third in their group, and were to contest the plate final. In another stroke of luck our young opposition, Leavers 2003, had played an extra game and were looking a little jaded like Darius in his pop hit "Colour-blind" except without the really fit bird in the video, and the sudden rainstorm because it was still a lovely day by then. So the Hands went about their business and never really looked threatened. It is to my embarrassment that I cannot remember all the scorers, but in particular two very fine tries were scored. The first started with a long break from Whibley who ran a good 50 yards before attempting an overhead pass to Pool. The ball fell to Lawrence Brown, who found himself in open space with the try line beckoning, and immediately got a nosebleed. As one, the Hands shouted "Run, Loz!" which he did, although he was caught just short and had to pop the ball to Pool who scored under the posts. The second involved a lot of slick interpassing between 3 players including Lawrence Brown, and I believe Phil Haworth, for a well worked try in the corner. Special mention should also be made of an impressive run by Thorne which started with a successful dummy kick and continued with an overhead dummy - one of these dummies prompted the rueful marker to call Tim "a fcuking cnut" (except not misspelt). The Hands were awarded their nice shiny plate (the biggest on offer, it was noted) and ran off to a barbecue up the road in Henley, where we were fed like Kings by Bobby and Maureen Brown, and celebrated Lawrence's birthday with a Guinness cake. Mmm, nice. Oh, also Loz celebrated his ante-penultimate day of being 25 by beating Thorne over 3 legs at sumo, to the delight of the onlookers. Well done to all involved, it was a top day and good to see you all.
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