Pupletts in Sweden: Viking Cup (15-16th June 2024)

This year the boys took part in the Viking Cup Rugby Competition. This was a tournament hosting teams from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and even Scotland for junior rugby.

Tomas played for the P16s (boys under 16s) and his team finished third. Cameron played for the P18s (boys under 18s) and his team won the gold. The boys played 3 games on the first day, with 2x15minute halves, and two finals on the Sunday.

The games were to be hosted in Partille in Gothenburg, and the boys were going to travel up with their teams and stay in a school hall - so Kris and I booked a hotel for Friday-Sunday. It was then announced that the boys were going to take a bus up at 5am on Saturday morning. Instead they chose to come up on Friday with us.

Since we'd only booked a standard hotel room, we had to upgrade to a room with a pull-down bed, but Tomas needed to set up his air mattress on the floor. It was a bit crowded but we made it work.

The next day, the boys were set up at two different fields. Cameron was playing at Spartacus Rugby Field and Tomas was playing at a school about 10min drive away.

While Cameron's ground was well equipped, Tomas didn't have changerooms or even goal posts. We spent most of the day ferrying ourselves and the coach between the fields and managed to catch all of the games except the first half of Cameron's first match (which was luckily livestreamed).

Both boys and their teams played really well and came out of day 1 with good results:

Day 1 Results:

Malmö P16s:
vs Denmark United (Draw 14-14)
vs Stockholm Exiles (Draw 7-7)
vs RugbyKlubb Speed (Win 20-0)

Malmö P18s
vs RugbyKlubb Speed (Win 12-5)
vs Enköping (Win 26-14)
vs Erikslund/Hammerby (Win 17-0)

The teams had planned to go the Liseberg amusement park after their games, but Cameron's last game didn't finish until almost 7pm, so it was too late for him, but Tomas went with some friends and had a great time. It pelted down with rain and Kris and I got soaked through our rain coats, but it was good to watch the boys play.

After the last game, we headed back to our hotel where we tried to dry our wet gear and used the hairdryer to try to dry our shoes out for the next day.

The second day was the finals, with the winner of Pool 1 playing the runner-up of Pool 2 and the winner of Pool 2 playing the runner-up of Pool 1.

Tomas has finished second in his pool, so they played the winner of Pool 2 - Uppsala. They played well and pushed the game into overtime (draw 5-5) so the game went to golden point and Uppsala managed to get over the line for a 10-5 win.

Tomas then had his Bronze Medal playoff against Erikslund/Hammerby (who had beaten Stockholm in their semi-final) and they won this match (10-5) - taking home the Bronze.

Cameron's team had finished top of their pool and played Uppsala for their Semifinal, winning (12-7). They then went on to face Enköping in the Grand Final, winning (14-7)

P16s Pools

P16s Pool 1 Results, Day 1

P16 Finals

P18s Pools

P18s Day 1 Results

P18s Finals

Overall it was a great weekend of rugby and the boys played really well. Kristine took way too many photos and it took me a few days to get them all sorted out and uploaded - here's some of the pics of the boys: