Portobello 7s, Players Dinner and More!
Greetings Northerners,
Apologies for our tardiness in delivering the blog this week. A combination of weekend excess, and working quite hard – 9 hour days aren’t why we joined the public sector - reduced the time we could devote to the blog.
As we know, the 15-a-side season is over. The time of short socks, shorter shorts and somewhat bafflingly, attacking in a backwards direction, otherwise known as Rugby Sevens, has begun. So let tell you about the week the come, and the week ahead.
Portobello Rugby Sevens
Northern, as is tradition, sent a squad of intrepid young men to Portobello Seven’s at Cavalry Park last Saturday (14 April). Two defeats in the group stage (29-7 vs Linlithgow, 26-14 v Dunbar) saw Northern progress to the Secretary Shield quarter finals. A solid victory 28-21 victory against Royal High saw them narrowly in the semi-final against Leith.
Unfortunately our roaming reporter, Saul Forbes, stopped sharing scores at this stage – electing instead to share Star Wars memes - but the final score was heavily in favour of Leith Academicals. A decent outing for Northern with work to be done ahead of the remaining tournaments. Credit to those who travelled to the Southside to support also.
Players Dinner
Our annual players dinner took place that evening and featured scenes of great bonhomie for the 25 or so players who attended. For the second year in row we must thank our resident South African Ash Bairstow and the wonderful team at Herringbone for hosting us, keeping the seemingly never-ending Guinness flowing and putting on a magnificent spread.
Club captain Jamie McCann spoke at the conclusion of the meal – some fine words, as promised in his interview a few weeks back. A number of awards or prizes were also handed out. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what they were – see the never-ending Guinness – but I believe James Breslin was award “Injury of the Season” for growing a third eye against Earlston, and Hugh Butler ended up wearing a rather short t-shirt marked “Volunteer of the Year.”
A fine evening, and one we looked forward to repeating in the future.
Edinburgh Northern Blyth + Blyth Sevens
When the sun beats down on Inverleith Park, and the beer tent manned by Messrs Brechin and Horner is in full swing, there is not a place I would rather be than the Edinburgh Northern Blyth + Blyth Sevens. Scotland’s premier social rugby sevens tournament, this year sees 21 teams taking part for what will be an afternoon of excellent rugby, and even better craic.
As is always the case with Northern, our thanks must go to Blyth + Blyth for the work that they and Mike Horner put into to delivering such a fantastic event. However, there is a great deal of tasks to be done and as always, the expectation is that we club members will be down to help out with the delivery of the day.
With that, it is requested that all players/club members make their way down to Inverleith Park from 10am on Saturday 19 April to assist with set up. Additionally, if you are able to, please bring a plethora of sandwiches/baked goods to help feed the 200+ players attending the event.
Conclusions
With that we’ll leave you. Beyond this weekend there is still Penicuik Sevens to come, and of course our tour to Brussels, but the 2024/2025 season is nearly at an end. “Training” or summer touch remains in place on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and do stay tuned for summer developments, featuring the British & Irish Lions, amongst other things.
Yours in rugby,
ENRFC
Michael Mawdsley