On Saturday the 21st of June it was time for yet another Elegance experience in Paris. One of the biggest female only touch rugby tournaments in Europe, organised by FreeTouchParis.
HRC enrolled a women’s team, as well as Amsterdam. I was lucky enough to be asked to play with HRC. My own club in Utrecht does not have enough women for our own team (goal for 2028!) and I would be sorry to miss this fantastic tournament. So super grateful to be able to join the Fluffies!
The in total 12 teams were divided into 3 poules for the poule phase. The Fluffy Dragons were placed in poule C with the Touch Roosters, SMH and Spicy Waffles. The day started already warming up with our first game at 10:00 against the Touch Roosters.
Despite arriving a little late we executed, defended well and scored tries. The result was a 4-4 draw.
With only a little rest just enough to fill water bottles and briefly talk over some subbing off changes we were facing SMH from Grenoble. Again a great game, unfortunately we drew the shorter end and lost this game by just 2 points. Both these teams made it to the finals!
With temperatures rising even more we got into our final poule game before lunch, facing the spicy waffles from Belgium. Again a well fought battle by all our players on the pitch, resulting in another 4-4 draw.
These results placed us into the CUP/Plate play off games (top 8!).
After a fantastic lunch meal we played the Hurricanes. The lunch gave us power as we fought fierce on the tryline, despite the many opportunities they had only 1 was scored due to the impeccable defense. On the other side we found the little gaps and scored 2 tries. With a 2-1 win we placed ourselves in the top 4!
Two very tight well fought games followed against SMH (again) and the French Barbarians, resulting in 2 losses. With our final and highest ever ranking place of 4th.
The dinner and party (canal tour on the Seine) were as always well organised by FreeTouch, the matching after games outfits with Amsterdam and Bibi as the MVP player of the tournament were the perfect closures of the day.
It was a majestic and super hot day, with the potentially highest result with winning only one game. This all without the support of the Fluffy Dragon’s mascot Donatello who sadly was forgotten for this trip. One can only imagine what the result would have been with him being there….
Thanks Fluffies! love, Francien
photo credits to: @lapicande and @freetouchparis
