Around 5am on Saturday morning, 3rd October, 13 bleary eyed souls set out for Calais to join our advanced scout (Jon L) who was already in France. Despite some navigational struggles we arrived at the Amicale Rugby Calaisien club in good time for the 9.30 briefing.

Two pools of 7 teams competed against each other with a play-off game for each team against the team who had finished in the same table position in the other group.
The combined Reigate team played in its usual expansive style and with its usual generous spirit contributed players to other teams, particularly Esher for whom we provided a rolling rota of 2 players for each of their games - including the one against us!

Three games were played in the morning session before a splendid lunch, accompanied by a brass band in full uniform, and the remaining three games in the afternoon. Tight wins against Esher and an ominously young Calais team were accompanied by 3 more comfortable triumphs.

A narrow loss against Park House (the eventual, unbeaten Tournament winners) was our only defeat in the six pool games though, to general puzzlement, we apparently finished third in our pool ?! This resulted in a play-off match against Barnes Green where our win ensured a 5th place finish in the Tournament and a net result of 6 wins from 7 games on the day.

The generosity of our French hosts continued into the evening with an excellent dinner and transport arranged between the club and the hotels. As the beer flowed Noel conducted an impromptu coaching session for some 10-year-olds under the anxious gaze of their parents, some shapes were thrown on the dance floor and a very funny crowd surfing game was initiated by Burgess Hill.

The re-introduction of a few of us to the delights of Ricard, instigated by Joe and one of the club barmen, resulted in a somewhat hazy recollection of the rest of the evening. After visiting a couple of bars in the town the homing autopilot kicked in for a few of us sometime around 12.30, but the remainder creditably kept the flag flying in a further establishment until 2am! A very long but very enjoyable day, thanks everyone.