PETERBOROUGH FESTIVAL: Borough girls are joint winners

However, the Purple Bricks-backed side ended up drawing the final and sharing the trophy with Welwyn (Garden City).

The Borough girls had cruised through their initial group stage, beating Hitchin, Kesteven and Towcestrians without conceding a try and scoring no less than 19 of their own in the process.

The semi-final against Old Albanians (from St Albans) proved to be a gruelling and highly competitive affair with the home side scraping a narrow, but well-deserved, 15-10 win.

Welwyn, meanwhile, were also in a bruising and exhausting battle with Barker Butts (from Coventry) in their semi-final and also won by a single try, 10-5.

Drained by their respective semi-finals, Peterborough and Welwyn could have served up an anti-climax of a final but both sides dug deep and found a new reserve of energy, scoring three tries apiece in a real thriller, sharing the trophy, presented by Peterborough mayor John Fox.

“The standard of play was absolutely phenomenal today,” said team manager and event organiser Simon Potter, “but that’s what we expected with the cream of the Midlands and Eastern Counties coming together for this event.

“We’ve had a great rivalry with Welwyn this season. They ended our proud 74-game unbeaten streak in October, but we went to their ground in February and became the first team to beat them all season. It was fitting to draw! We could meet again in two weeks, at the event run by the RAF RFU, so that could be a tasty match.”

There was also an Under 11 section at the event, with the Peterborough team coming out on top, winning all of their matches.

Clubs from as far afield as Mansfield in the north, St Albans in the south, Coventry in the west and Diss in the east were among the 16 involved.