The day drew long and the Cretan sun beat down on our intrepid tourists as the Finsbury Park Panthers and the Lady Gunners mixed with their Men’s teams to kick off a very competitive game of 7-a-side touch. It was clear early on that the non-mens would have been happy playing contact as “more of a bosher” Georgie and Marianna “The beast” put hits in early and often. The Cretan team, led by Sofia, was full of pace and ball skills; Sofia made Harry and Cat look silly early in the game with her footwork, and just a few plays later Deshon broke the ankles of a couple more of our players. Harry and Josh had bricks for hands and turned the ball over the Lady Gunners a number of times leaving Finsbury back on their own line but somehow holding the Gunners out. Luckily Will scored twice in quick succession against the run of play - he really does hate all forms of contact and touch is his sport.

Georgie and Sam also made breaks for the Panthers, but Sam was caught from behind (probably by Sofia) and Georgie decided to run straight through defenders instead of going around them – again, maybe better suited to contact? It was certainly a physical game of touch. The Lady Gunners had amazing ball skills and loved to run a loop play. They were also fantastic at running in pods, red ones were their bread and butter. The Lady Gunners scored after Tychalas broke through the Panthers’ defence and offloaded to Eva. Shortly after, Eva took the Lady Gunners over the Panthers’ line again, recovering her own perfectly weighted grubber kick. It was probably the best kick of the day, please take note Harry.

2-2 Half Time

The second half started with a lot of physicality, which was odd for a game of touch. The non-mens players seemed to have formed an unspoken agreement that they were just going to hit each other. Marianna may have had the best hands of the day, throwing behind the back and no look passes accurately and often, but it was clear they would much rather hold the ball and run over any opponent. Cat also dropped their shoulder driving Eva out over the sideline in front of a very impressed crowd. The play of the day came when Eva intercepted a Panthers’ pass and immediately put in a cross-field kick straight to one of the fellow Gunners. I’ve never seen anything like it [Editor’s note: Your author Mitch may have been a little smitten by the Lady Gunners’ lock]

After a long period of back and forth and some solid defence by both the Gunners and Panthers, the game was torn open when nice hands found Josh on the wing, and he just edged Sofia in an epic footrace for a full field try. Soon after Max scored an intercept try out of nowhere. And finally some great hands by the Panthers put Muss over in the corner. The Lady Gunners continued fighting to the end with some big runs up the middle, but solid defence from Georgie and Cat kept the Gunners out right until the final whistle, when Nick dove over for the score.

3-5 Full Time

Final score: 3-5 (Finsbury Panthers)
Tries FP: Will x2, Josh, Max, Muss
Tries Gunners: Eva x2, Nick
FP Player of the Match: Georgie
Gunners Player of the Match: Marianna