St Neots U13s brought the curtain down on the Cambridgeshire and Essex Festivals in style, travelling to Mistley in Essex for the final round and returning home as the outstanding team of the day.

With Mistley a two-hour journey from home, the team hired a coach to get the squad there together, speaking volumes about the spirit running through this group. The players arrived as a unit, and they played like one.

The day brought entirely new opposition, with St Neots facing Beccles, Sudbury, Mistley and Colchester in succession, four sides they had never encountered before. That unfamiliarity was never a problem. Two commanding wins set the tone, before a fiercely contested draw with hosts Mistley, a result that could easily have gone St Neots' way. They were camped on the Mistley line and pressing hard for the winning score when the final whistle intervened.

That near-miss only seemed to sharpen the team's focus for the closing match of the festival. Facing Colchester, a physically imposing side, St Neots were driven on by a wall of noise from their teammates on the touchline, vocal and fully invested throughout. What followed was a real ding-dong battle, but St Neots' superior skill and the quality of their interlinked passing game ultimately told. They ran out winners and, with it, claimed the overall honours for the day.

Equally worthy of recognition were the four players who stepped in to represent the opposition at various points across the festival, ensuring all sides had the numbers to play. Each one threw themselves into the role without hesitation, making try-saving tackles, holding firm in the scrum and threatening their own teammates' line when the opportunity arose.

Head coach Ian Wallis reflected on more than just the results. "Days like this are what community rugby is all about," he said. "A two-hour trip, four matches, kids playing for each other in front of their teammates. I'm incredibly proud of how every single one of them performed today, not just in terms of rugby but in terms of who they are. To see them competing so hard and then turning round and helping the opposition so they could play too, that's the game at its best."