Ilkley win their own sevens tournament at Stacks Field

The Stacks Field outfit got all three of their senior sides through to the men's semi-finals and their first team won the competition.

They didn't have things all their own way and were given two testing games by the eventual runners-up Bradford Grammar School.

Ilkley, who are preparing for the National Sevens at Bath next Saturday, won all three of their group games against Bradford GS 31-12, Baildon 35-0 and BD7 26-12.

In the semi-finals they defeated their own third team 33-14 and lifted the cup after defeating Bradford GS 26-7 in the final.

Ilkley 2nds, who had beaten Conditioned 42-0 and Guest Team 40-0 to make the last four, were beaten 5-0 by Bradford GS in the semi-finals.

The third team defeated England Police 24-10 and Blackburn 15-12 in their group games.

The ladies competition was won by the England Deaf team.

Ilkley's winning squad included Jack Maplesden, Elliot Morgan, Charles Morgan, Blake Morgan, Pat Power, Ben Waddington, Josh Hall, Chris Gemmell, Declan Jackson, Ben Magee and JH Johnson.

But head of rugby Rhys Morgan said: "We weren't at our best and I guess that was because we felt under pressure to win after getting through to the National Sevens.

"I thought we overdid things at times and didn't have our normal fluency, but at the end of the day we got the result we wanted."

Looking at the event as a whole, Morgan said: "I thought it was a big success for the club and is something we want to repeat.

"There is a list of things that we have identified that we can do better as we look to develop the event."

One of the areas Ilkley will be looking at is the number of teams. This time there were 13 in the men's event and three in the women's. "We would ideally like 16 and we would have to decide if that was the ultimate size of event that we want to stage."

3rd Team

Beat England Police 24-10

Beat Blackburn 15-12

Semi Final—Ilkley 1s v Ilkley 3s 33-14

Semi Final Ilkley 2s v Bradford GS 0-5

Final Ilkley 1s v BGS 26-7