The Parliamentary World Cup Tournament ran from Sunday 13th to Thursday 17th September with 8 teams from across the globe involved. In our squad of 25 there were two AMs, Andrew RT Davies and Rhun Ap Iorwerth, ten members of Welsh Government staff and thirteen members of Assembly staff from Cardiff Bay.

In the Welsh Assembly Rugby group we played defending champions New Zealand Parliament, the French Parliament and the Argentina Congresso. The other group was composed of the House of Commons & Lords, South African Parliament, Australian Parliament and a Barbarians team made up of players from the other participating teams. After three days of competition Australia won the overall tournament on points difference from New Zealand.

We played New Zealand first up in Rugby School, playing our game on the close, the same pitch on which William Webb Ellis famously picked up the ball and ran in 1823. The strong and experienced New Zealand team included three ex international players (Jack Tarrant with 35 caps for Japan, Ofisa Junior Tonu’u with 10 caps for Samoa and New Zealand and Billy Weepu, older brother of World cup winner Piri Weepu who played both professional rugby league and for the New Zealand Maoris). The New Zealand team had played eight warm up games in preparation for the tournament and started the match at a furious pace after performing their own full blooded version of the Haka war dance. After three quick tries in the first 15 minutes our team grew into the match and defended resolutely, only conceding a late try with the last play of the game to lose 26-0.

Our remaining games were played at Richmond rugby club in London where we finally got our attacking game going, beating a physical and slightly bad tempered French Parliamentary team 19-5 (three tries to one). The beginning of the match was marked with rousing renditions of both National anthems.

We then lost 28-7 on the last day of the tournament to a well drilled, well organised Argentina team with a squad of over 40 players to our 25. By this stage in the competition we had picked up a number of injuries and although competitive throughout the match we weren’t able to take advantage of our long periods of attacking pressure to pick up the points we needed to stay in the game. At the end both squads joined together in singing and exchanging of jerseys and the whole match was marked by this friendly and sportsmanlike atmosphere.

Almost the entire Welsh squad also then turned out for a second match on both the Sunday and the Tuesday, representing the mixed Barbarians side in games against Australia and South Africa.

This was Assembly Rugby's first Parliamentary World Cup – and our Welsh representation and committed and spirited involvement went a long way to raising the profile of the Assembly. We made a lot of friends amongst all of the competing teams and received several invitations for future matches and tours. Some of our more ambitious squad members have already started to plan a possible involvement in the next World Cup in 2019 in Japan!