Weybridge Valkyrie Eve Dark earned the right to rub shoulders with rugby royalty at the RAF Halton Girls' Festival Of Rugby on Sunday.

Eve, playing a year up, was a key part of the Reeds/London Irish/Valkyries Cluster team that lifted the U12s Cup in Aylesbury thanks to a thrilling final triumph over Basildon.

The team, playing in London Irish colour, topped their eight-team pool in some style scoring 27 tries and conceding just three on their way to six wins and one defeat.

Having already played the likes of Hertford RFC, Buckingham RFC, Welwyn RFC and Bedford Blues on an exhausting day they dug deep to a 20-10 triumph over their Essex rivals in the final.

Eve and the rest of the team received their trophies from women's rugby trailblazer and current RFU President Deborah Griffin OBE.

Griffin played for University College London in the first game of women's rugby to be played in England in 1978; captained the first women's club team Finchley RFC; was a founding member of the Women's RFU in 1983; and, was a principal organiser of the first Women's Rugby World Cup in 1991.

Glory days: RFU President Deborah Griffin with the triumphant Reeds/London Irish/Valkyries Cluster

The U12s section also had a team at the Cobham Girls' 10s Festival featuring Valkyries U11s Francesca Scully, Ida Felgate and Maddie Smith.

For a first full contact experience in an older age group, they showed great determination to compete with seasoned U12s, making some great tackles and scoring plenty of tries along the way.

The U14s Cluster, led by coaches Ian and Michelle Taylorson, entered two teams into the Cobham 10s Festival with the Blue team claiming four straight wins, while the Reds - largely an U13s team - claiming a win, a draw and two narrow defeats against older opposition.

Click on the venues for pictures from both events > Aylesbury and Cobham.

The U16s Cluster got their season up and running with a round-robin group of games against Old Reigatians and Haywards Heath at Reeds Weybridge.