Round 9 of the Superseries and possibilities are shrinking for the competing teams. I don´t have my finger on the pulse this week as my family and I are down in Cape Town for the World Seven´s Championships. We are also celebrating my wife´s 80th birthday. Rugby connection? There are 16 of us in our closest family and, apart from Sylvia, 13 of the remaining 15 have at one time or another turned out for Stockholm Exiles. There are still seven active with an age range of 9 – 57 and six have represented Sweden at some level. We also have three Stora Grabbar, Hamish and the married couple Hunter Jr and Thérèse. And, finally, a Chairman of Rugbyförbundet and two district chairmen. There are quite a few Swedish families with multiple rugby activities but I don´t think anyone has come near to matching Sylvia´s output.
Returning to current activities, Troján were unable to play last week because of Covid problems and one wonders how much their situation has improved in the last seven days. I haven´t seen any team lists and don´t know what team Exiles are sending down to Norrköping tomorrow but they have plenty good players and still have an outside chance of retaining their title. Nothing less than 5 points from the visit will be acceptable to them.
Big match of the day is of course Enköping´s trip down to Trelleborg. Enköping need to win to keep their title hopes alive; they beat Pingvin 31 – 7 at home a few weeks ago but as I said at the time Enköping got off to a flying start and thereafter the score was 7 – 7 for the remaining 60 minutes. Pingvin played well last week to beat Exiles but almost their only scoring move is the pack driving over from lineouts. Enköping have sharper backs but if Pingvin have the same pack as last week they could cause problems for the Enköping forwards. Both teams have strong defences and we could well see a low-scoring game with kicks deciding. A win for Pingvin and their grip on the title becomes stronger.