First All Stockholm Final.

At the end of the day, Sweden had it's first all Stockholm final. This should be a a tremendous spectacle and give the capital a match to remember.

Enkoping visited Arsta full of hopes that they could turn around the 2 point deficit and reach yet another final. Exiles had other ideas and were not going to take their opponents lightly. From the off the home side went onto the attack putting together a number of effective phases eventually forcing the visitors to give away a penalty for offside which was gratefully taken. The home side though started to concede a number of penalties allowing their visitors to gain ground from them and with the assistance of a strong wind got down into the home side's territory and from yet another penalty scored 3 points to equal the score.
The men in black then attacked again and earned themselves a yet another penalty, from the resultant scrum and worked the ball over the tryline to score.
Enkoping started to run the ball from everywhere and to utilise their talented backline but could not break down the Exiles defence but both defence's stood firm. For some ridiculous reason a yellow card was shown to an exiles player and ERK threw everything at their hosts and despite the numerical advantage they could not get the ball over the line. the half time whistle signalled that there had been no further score.
From the restart the hosts kept running the ball at the visitors and but from a few hurried passes may have added to the score, earlier than they did. Eventually the last pass stuck and they went over to score a well deserved  converted try. This was added to by a score under the posts which was converted and the game was virtually over. Enkoping kept probing and eventually scored out wide to get some self respect back.
However Exiles came back even stronger and scored two more tries to record a 34-8 win and a aggregate score of 59-31.





On the other pitch and with the kick off at the same time, (WHY) Hammarby entertained Spartacus. The green and whites started of at a whirlwind pace and were determined to beat their less illustrious opponents. However it was the visitors who were awarded a penalty just inside the home side's half. The kick at goal was just missed and within a few minutes the home side had managed to score out wide and convert the try. Unfortunately during this phase of play the visitors lost their captain and number 9 with a dislocated elbow. There followed a game that was constantly interrupted by the referee awarding a number of penalties that left not only the players but the coaches and spectators baffled. The tackling was ferocious by both sides and after another ruck the number 8 from Spartacus left the field with a serious ankle injury. From yet another strange penalty Hammarby managed to score yet another converted try giving them an overall lead of 9 points. From the restart Spartacus were reduced to 14 men following a yellow card and during this period the home side exerted enormous pressure, however they could score following some tremendous defence and a little bit of luck, the visitors held the home side out, scoring from a penalty themselves. Hammarby managed to score two more penalties before half time.
The second half was similar to the first but overall belonged to Spartacus and the penalties were now being awarded against the hosts. The visitors were playing catch up and they appeared to be rushing rather than play at the pace they had the previous week. This played into Hammarby's hands and they were able to handle the onslaught.  Hammarby were once again awarded penalty and they took the 3 points. The game was still displaying some tremendous tackling which was only to be applauded. Though the late hit via a flying headbutt on the visiting 10 was a disgrace and bought the home side a yellow card, which could and arguably should have been a red. This followed several unsavoury incidents which have no place in the game.  Eventually the visitors managed to cross the line from a poor kick to touch by the home side which was run back at them for a fine try. A penalty restart into touch ended the game, with Hammarby worthy winners, 23-8 giving them a winning overall score of 34-24.

From our view, there was too much intervention by the linesmen in both matches and it would be beneficial to have independent referee's in the middle. It appeared that the man in the middle for the Hammarby v Spartacus match was very much out of his depth. The Union also need castigating for allowing both games to kick off at the same time. It's time the board woke up to the realities of the game!

That expressed, we are looking forward to the finals and hope to see some great rugby as an advert for Swedish Rugby.