Team Honey Badger stormed to victory in the Hendon 7s and manager Gordon Brown is hoping to turn local success into regional triumph.

The Badgers have a long and proud history of sevens action and powered to glory in the Secure Trading 24/Sevens tournament, held at Hendon RFC on April 29.

They are now eyeing more success in the regional finals after an impressive follow-up performance in another sevens tournament in Middlesex the week after.

Brown was impressed with the Badgers at the Hendon competition as he says it laid an excellent marker for the rest of the season for his side.

“We’ve been in the past and always enjoyed it. It’s a good run out for us to start putting our team together,” said Brown.

“It would great if we could get to the national finals – that really would be something and a step up for us.

“We’ve now qualified for the regional finals which is great – it means we’ve qualified at the earliest opportunity and it took a bit of pressure off us.

“We went into Middlesex and I could select some new boys to have a look at and we did very well in that as well.”

The Secure Trading 24/Sevens Series is England Rugby’s premier competition for sevens teams – open to all community clubs and men’s and women’s sevens teams to enter, with qualifiers, followed by regionals later in the summer and the National Finals at The Recreation Ground in Bath on July 28.

The competition, which attracted more than 10,700 players from around the country in 2017, is aimed at continually growing sevens among both men and women and is back for a third year.

Brown said the performances from some of the players in the early season tournaments will give him and the management team food for thought looking forward to the south-east regional finals, which this year take place at Ealing Trailfinders on June 30.

“Team Honey Badger are quite a young sevens team and we’re still building,” said Brown.

“There are players coming to us now putting their hands up wanting to join the Honey Badgers. The big incentive for players to join and commit is that we go to the Dubai 7s, too.

“We’ve got one young lad who has just finished school – his nickname was ‘Turbo’. There was a bit of a period where we thought he might not be as quick as we first thought but he’s certainly regained that and he’s much stronger too.

“He’s not just gas now and he’s putting a marker down on the circuit.”

The Secure Trading 24/Sevens Series is England Rugby’s premier competition for sevens teams – open to all community clubs and men’s and women’s sevens teams to enter. For more information: www.englandrugby.com/24sevens