OLD Albanian U9 Lions returned from Ispwich RFC’s annual mini festival as champions, having not dropped a game on the way to the trophy.

The boys enjoyed success at county level so were keen to see how they would fare against teams from Suffolk and Essex.

The team enjoyed their matches and put on an excellent display of free flowing rugby. Despite some of the score lines, the matches were very competitive - there were many crunching tackles by both team.

In the pool games the Lions beat Bury St Edmunds, Woodbridge, Colchester and Sudbury. All the games were played in a thoroughly sporting and friendly yet competitive manner. As pool winners Lions progressed to meet Hadleigh in the final, which they comfortably won.