St Albert's College captain Ben Hamparsum was understandably emotional after his side capped off their strong season with back-to-back New England Rugby Union title wins.
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The students proved too strong for the gallant Armidale Blues, winning 29-14 in a physical and entertaining contest.
"It is an amazing feeling, it really is," Hamparsum said of bagging repeat titles.
"It is a bit surreal at the moment, still coming down from the moment but just unreal."
The Albies skipper is in his final year at the University of New England and will move on next year, giving this title extra meaning.
"It is going to be sad but it is exciting to move on to new things.
"It is just great to finish off a season like this and I am going to focus on that and have a good time."
It was a close battle and both sides rose to the challenge physically and mentally.
Hamparsum attributed their resilience to the close-knit nature of the group.
"The mateship here is unbelievable.
"We live together, we play footy together, do uni together so the mateship is like nothing else.
"When we play footy, we play for each other.
"Because we are such good friends we dug in and it came together quite nicely."
Hamparsum also said their ability to come together when it counted was unrivalled.
"That is just down to trusting each other in defence and trusting the process," he said.
"We have been talking about being able to trust each other all season and I think it really shows how much trust and courage we have as a team.
"I think that was reflected by the scoreboard today as well."
It was a tight tussle early and it took 18 minutes for the first points to be scored with Albies' Tom McCormack slicing his way through.
Albies scored again through Hamish Brown, Mathew Peterson converting before Blues skipper Jack Grant hits back, Morgan Pennefather adding the extras.
Then things became very tough for the Blues.
Jaia Richardson-Fowell was carted off the field with a game-ending injury.
Jack Grant also left the field with a suspected broken arm.
Corey Stace was yellow carded and then Albies slotted a penalty to go 15-7 in front with eight minutes remaining in the opening-half.
Albies skipper Ben Harparsum then scored to round out the first 40 at 22-7 in favour of the students.
The second stanza saw Albies post the first points with Mark Green scoring from a Hamish Brown-break. That went converted to push the score out to 29-7.
The Blues players continued to drop like flies with half Harry Phillips knocked out.
But then pint-sized utility Shuaib Rhodes-Swain gave the Blues fans something to cheer about with a dazzling solo effort to reduce the deficit to 29-14.
But the score would remain that as the match came to a close.
In the other matches, Albies also went back-to-back in the women's 10s premiership, Glen Innes were too good for Albies in second grade and Tamworth clinched a win over Albies late in the third grade clash.
More to come on those during the week.
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