
BENIDORM 2005 Swaffham travelled to mainland Spain to compete in the 19th Annual Benidorm Rugby Sevens and acquitted themselves well whilst making several new friends. Their involvement ended at the quarter-final stage of the Plate after some stirring displays against fitter and more committed opposition. Although being relegated to the Junior Competition by the hosts, and eventual winners, La Vila, Swaffham developed their dogged style of play and often received suitable response from the partisan and knowledgeable crowd. Swaffhams sweeper system, with Nally prowling like a caged animal at the back, seemed to work well, and James’ control at the restarts enabled them to use their unusual mauling technique to good advantage. Richardson and Gillespie put their weight to good use and although the late inclusion of Nye had little impact, it was left to Ellis and Smith to mesmerise the opposition with their hand and ball control. Tries from Gladman (2), Upton and Reed came at regular, if not long, intervals and later TV replays showed that Vicky was unlucky not to have scored. Results: University Alicante 24 Swaffham 5 Swaffham 5 La Vila 32 Swaffham 7 Old Zahirians 0 AKRA 20 Swaffham 10		WARSAW INTERNATIONAL 10's 2006 Swaffham travelled to Poland with a squad of 20 players for their first taste of the Warsaw International 10’s tournament, full of anticipation and determined to enjoy themselves. The idea of arriving a day early to see some of the sites of Warsaw was lost on some of the players who saw it as an excuse to just stay out later the night before, but when Saturday arrived they were all on hand to start the challenge. First up were the Prague Barbarians, and in true Swaffham style, they were allowed to score almost immediately. Swaffham then started to play some good rugby and from the base of the scrum Gladman picked up to score the first of his two tries for the tournament, thus making him Swaffhams top try scorer for the weekend. Having won the first game Swaffham felt more confident going into the second game against the host team Frogs & Co (Warsaw) only to find very soon that as it their competition they wanted to win more, and in the end Swaffham held on well to go down by just 17-0. The tournament organisers were generous enough though to name Chris Angell as Man of the Match and present him with his trophy. The third game of the day should have taken place after a local Polish league match that was scheduled to be played mid way through the proceedings. This would have meant a break of four hours to relax, but when the start was delayed for nearly an hour, and then a serious accident extended the match by another 30 minutes, the majority of the players decided to try the local vodka, as encouraged by the hosts. The third game kicked off about 6.30pm against BEC Old Boys from London and as both sides struggled to see the ball, it wasn’t pretty to watch and never seemed to flow as well as the vodka. Swaffham received their second award of the competition, when they admitted to having too many players on the pitch during the second half and were awarded the Fair Play Award. The result stood, and Swaffham lost 17-0 again, but ready for day two. More by luck than judgement, for the second days play, Swaffham had qualified through to the last eight of the main competition, due to their sterling defensive work and so promptly lost to Dalziel RFC(Scotland) by 39-0 to set up a Plate Semi final against Budapest Exiles(Hungary). Once again a long gap in the proceedings caused players to lose their focus and in the final game Swaffham were cruelly denied victory when the referee failed to see the ball being grounded by Kevin Carruthers. Simon Reed, who had represented the Irish side Dublin Spaniels in the previous game, had already scored to bring Swaffham into the match but it finally ended at 10-5 to Budapest. Throughout the two days play Stuart Smiths defence had been superb and he was Player of the Tournament. At the evening presentation attended by all the participants Swaffham donated two shirts and two balls signed by England Captain Martin Corry, which were auctioned and raised nearly £500 towards the Frogs & Co charity fund.