On Sunday the Marr U16s hosted their annual 7s Tournament at Fullarton. The weather had been pretty miserable all week and had threatened to rain the day off, thankfully some weekend sunshine and strong winds left the pitches in good condition for us to go ahead.

It was an incredibly strong field of teams assembled with squads coming from as far a field as Stirling County, Boroughmuir and Dumfries. We also welcomed West of Scotland who had visited only 3 weeks previously in an incredibly tight West Cup Final. Lenzie, Ayr & Kilmarnock made up the 8 teams who would be battling it out for the Cup & Shield.

The Marr lads started off the day with a really tricky opening match against a strong and well drilled Boroughmuir side. Marr struggled to get to grips with the strong running from Boroughmuir and were clearly a little rusty, going down 29-14. The task was now clear for the boys, win the next 2 matches against Ayr and Kilmarnock or be battling it out for the Shield.

The boys rallied and battled past both sides in tight matches. First defeating Ayr 22-15 and then coming from behind to defeat Kilmarnock 24-19. This set up a rematch of the West Cup Final from a few weeks ago against West of Scotland in the Cup Semi.

The boys got off to a great start with Fraser Inglis and Ewan Campbell linking up nicely to set Louis Docherty free down the wing to score. This really got Marr going and more great work from Captain Lyle Hill stretched the lead. In the second half a perfectly weighted kick off for Fraser Inglis to leap and claim before setting Louis free for another score. This set up a rematch of the opening game with Boroughmuir in the final.

The lads had clearly learned from their opening match and were much tighter in defence, staying on their feet and battling hard for each other. Another nice piece of play from Tom Monaghan gave Fraser Inglis the chance to set Louis free from his own half and he gassed it in from 70 metres out.

More great work at the restart from Ewan allowed Fraser to again win the kick off back and set up another attack. This time it was Lyle Hill who crashed over. It was a really well fought contest, Ewan Campbell was superb in defence making tackle after tackle and driving the Boroughmuir players back.

Some good ball movement from Connor Emslie, Matthew Gillespie and Lyle allowed Louis to dive over again and an excellent conversion from Tom all but sealed the win for Marr. Boroughmuir did battle back and score late on but it wasn't enough as the FT whistle sounded and the lads in Purple & Gold had taken the trophy. 24-17.

A massive thank you to the 4 referees from the West Referee Society who made the day possible and to all the Marr parents who helped put on such a great tournament.