Barbarians pick up valuable silverware

Some excellent performances by Babas debutants Robbie Greenhaugh, Andrew Spowart and Gordon Campbell, complimented by an astute tactical nous from the sidelines, by Director of Rugby Michael Fox, secured the victory.

It was a solid day’s work for the Babas and bodes well for the future.

Barbarians are an invitational 7s side who come together each year to play in various 7-a-side tournaments across the country.

Most of the boys selected are the best young talent from the southside area with others brought in from parts of glasgow and across the country. On Saturday, they entered the Braidholm 7s, hosted at Braidholm, home of GHA RFC.

The format of the tournament was a group stage followed by a knock-out round.

Barbarian Brendan Barrett explained: “In the group, we faced very strong competition in GHA, who came second in the BT championship this year; then The Minerva Builders — an invitational side selected from the best players in the BT Premiership, twice winners of the tournament and current reigning champions — and finally Linsmore, a strong Edinburgh-based outfit.”

They performed well in the group matches and managed to qualify for the plate knock-out round semi finals where we faced another very strong invitational side, Feegee. Barbarians comfortably beat Feegee with excellent perfomances from Robbie Greenhalgh, Andrew Spowart and Brendan Barrett, progressing to the final where they met an Aberdeen-based team Booshleekers. This was a fiercely contested final with Babas coming out on top by 29 points to 22.

Again Robbie Greenhalgh was excellent, as was young, southside based, GHA forward Gordon Campbell. The team was led throughout the day by Murray Houston, who led by example and was a key figure in the side.

The top try scorers for the day were Andrew Spowart and Robbie Greenhalgh, with the start performer being Tony Brogan.

Director of Rugby, Michael Fox praised the team, adding: “Extremely proud of the boys and their achievement. It wasn’t easy pulling a team together but I picked a game plan that suited our style and it worked for us.”