Mumbai: Pune District Men & Women Rugby teams won the Maharashtra Mini Olympic Rugby 7’s Championship 2015 by defeating Mumbai District Men’s by 21-14 and Raigadh District Women’s team by 24-0 respectively in Men and Women category. The tournament held at Bombay Gymkhana grounds, Mumbai on June 27 & 28, 2015. Mumbai Suburban Men & Women Rugby teams secured the third place by defeating Jalgaon District’s Men and Women rugby teams by 24-20 and 20-0 respectively.

In Men’s Final; Pune District Men’s team was very aggressive right from the start in what was set to be a tightly contested game. Pune District’s Pankaj Khopade scored one try, while Pappu Todkar scored two tries and secured all three conversions.

In Pune Womens Rugby team Annapurna Bothate scored two tries and Vahbiz Bharucha and Saloni Prachande supported the Pune teams win by scoring one-one try each. Avani Sabade converted two conversions in the women’s Final.

Rugby Association of Maharashtra (RAM) in Association with Maharashtra Olympic Association (MOA) had hosted the event, as part of a month long celebration of Olympics starting from Olympic Day- 23rd June, 2015, which is an initiative to promote Rugby in the state with the aim of identifying and developing sporting talent in rural areas of Maharashtra.

Commenting on the occasion Sandeep Mosamkar, Joint Secretary, Rugby Association of Maharashtra said, “We are thrilled to see the enthusiasm, participation and eagerness in youth from rural parts of Maharashtra. Jalgaon and Gondia’s Men and Women teams displayed tremendous performance in the tournament. We witnessed tightly contested teams who have been playing Rugby for past century. They displayed extreme passion during each of these matches. There is no dearth of talent in these areas, and today’s championship truly helped us discover the potential of the next breed of national players from Maharashtra.”