U12s' Malone Tour

Easter 2007

We set off on the first ‘real’ tour the boys had been on – and to Belfast no less to IFOR the World Famous International festival of Rugby.

After months of undefeated games against all our local rivals but also after a somewhat disappointing Marlow Tournament no one knew quite what to expect...we knew it would be tough and the competition was likely to be hard and aggressive....we couldn’t wait.

Overall – but this is open to debate, we ended up finishing 5th in the Tournament but we decided (in the bar – that actually we finished 3rd....but this was somewhat dependent in John Wanklyn’s Guinness orientated logic!)

Every boy in the squad did us proud and represented and represented Maids with honour and discretion and despite one or two disappointing games when we just didn’t wake up till the second half, and a massive injury list both before the tour and whilst on tour we performed very well indeed.

We also taught the Irish how to sing Maidenhead Rangers in the bar – whilst waiting for the coach. I am sure they loved it.... Many Dad’s and Mum’s developed a taste for the Guinness and we proudly drank the hotel bar dry...it has been said we had 450 pints in the first evening...which at £3.50 a pint proved we aren’t shy in spending money on tour.

The overall winners of the competition were Bishop Stortford but they were run a close thing by Bohemians in the final. Malone RFC were fine hosts and proudly sported a Maids shirt on their Club House walls from previous tourists from Maids.

The whole thing was very well run indeed and the tournament was sharing space with the IRB’s U19 World Cup Tournament so we seven shared the plane with Samoa on the way over.