Barnard Castle School enjoyed an extremely successful weekend in the national rugby sevens events in London, finishing as runners-up at both under 16 and under 18 level.

The U18 side were in action in the Rosslyn Park National Schools Sevens. From a starting field of 125 schools, Barnard Castle won through their group and a play-off match against Bloxham to progress into the last 16.

Wins against Radley (Oxford), last year's runners-up Eastbourne College (Sussex) and pre-tournament favourites St Edward's Oxford in the semi-final took the team through to a final against Wellington College (Berkshire), champions for the past three seasons.

Making the final represented an achievement unmatched in the history of the school.

Despite enjoying territorial and possession advantage for much of the game, Barnard Castle found themselves 12-5 down with a minute left. Pressing for victory, they allowed Wellington to break away for a final try to run out 19-5 victors.

The U16 team lost to Bradford Grammar School in a nail-biting final of the U16 National Invitation Sevens, contested by the respective county champions from across the country.

Having been invited to represent County Durham by winning the county U15 tournament the previous year, they topped a group which included favourites and holders Millfield from Somerset.

Subsequent victories against Hereford Cathedral School and Coopers (Essex) took them through to a semi-final against a much-fancied Wirral Grammar School side.

In an extremely tense atmosphere and worsening light, they overcame their opponents to win through to play under lights against Bradford on Richmond FC's main pitch.

Tries from Jim Carver and Sandy Jones were not quite enough to prevent Bradford scraping the extra-time winner in a game full of bravery and endeavour from both sides.

* In their first game of the season Darlington District Schools Year 9 team beat Chester-le-Street District 22-5 at Houghton le Spring..

Despite having had only one training session with coach Andy Thompson, Darlington looked like a team from kick-off. However, it was Chester-le-Street who applied the early pressure, pushing deep into Darlington territory with a series of good attacks up the middle of the park.

They were stopped only yards from the Darlington try line by some excellent defence, not least the tackling of Adam Thompson at inside centre.

Darlington then came back strongly themselves and worked the ball up the pitch for first of three first half scores. The pick of these was scored by Buch Hadland from a scrum on the Chester-le-Street five-metre line. The ball was picked up by captain Danny Large at No 8 and popped off in the tackle to Buch who finished a set move.

Chester-le-Street conceded a further try scored by prop Ben Wood with a 15-yard run from a maul to touch down. Darlington did concede a try late in the game, but win was assured.

* A STOKESLEY school rugby team surpassed all expectations when they won the recent Acklam Rugby Cup under-13 inter-schools tournament.

The boys were invited to take part and won the tournament with an unbeaten record.

The team was: David Donaldson, John Taylor, Andrew Hutchinson, Martin Tomlinson, Emile van Loo (capt) and Christopher Bayliss, Adam Robinson, Charles Mathias, Lewis Mullali, Jamie Gallagher and Tom Rathmell.