Published: Friday, 15th May, 2009 9:30am

Colts in 7s heaven

HADDINGTON COLTS were in sevens heaven as they put on a storming show to win the Jedburgh Sevens tournament.

Going to Jed has always been the final blast for the boys moving up to senior rugby. They have over the years failed to live up to expectations and usually exited the competition at the first or, on a good year the second round.

This year they gave something back to what is a fantastic sevens tournament

Their first-round match was against Langholm and Haddington were expecting a win but were made to battle for it with Langholm defending hard and running into space when they had the ball. Colts won comfortably in the end by 27-7.

Into the second round and a match versus Tynedale.

This was a tough physical encounter. The Colts were expecting to be playing Melrose Wasps in this game but Tynedale had fought hard to dispose of them in the first round.

It ended up two tries apiece but Haddington scored both theirs under the posts and crucially converted them to give them the win 14-10.

The semi-final was against Selkirk, the only team to have beaten the Colts throughout the King of the Sevens series and who are a quick and clever sevens outfit.

But Haddington shook that monkey of their backs with a comprehensive victory, which can put down to direct running and aggressive defence. Final score was 27-12.

The final was against Gala Wanderers, the team the Colts had played and defeated in the first round at their own sevens tournament a couple of weeks previous, so they knew they what it took for victory.

The Colts got off to the perfect start and scored first under the posts from Kyle Adams. Gala responded well and ran in under the posts to equalise the score at 7-7.

Colts" experience gained this year kept them in the game at this point as Gala were threatening each time they had the ball.

The defensive line stood firm, though, and one of their strengths over the circuit has been the ability to turn ball over at contact areas so they won ball back time after time.

Gala were tiring but still had enough energy to score at the posts with them making the most of a sloppy pass from ourselves to counter attack and score.

Again Colts had to dig deep and James Ferguson was the hero of the half as he made up for his earlier poor pass which led to the Gala try, to race in for two tries in the last couple of minutes of the first half to make it 17-14 to Haddington.

Gala were tiring and Colts capitalised when Sam Atkin ripped through the Gala defence on the halfway line to score out wide and make it 22-14.

Gala were straight back on the offensive and grafted out a score on the touchline to be within touching distance at 22-19.

Captain Alex Spence showed power and pace to burst through the middle of Gala defence and score under the posts. Final score, 29-19 to Haddington.