Sydney Convicts win gay rugby World Cup

11th June 2018 BWM Staff

They stripped off to fund their way to the gay rugby World Cup in the Netherlands, and now they’ve only gone and won it. Again!

Australian gay rugby team, the Sydney Convicts have beaten off all the competition to claim glory and the 2018 Bingham Cup. The Convicts beat the New York Gotham Knights 22 – 8 in the final on Sunday. It’s a record fifth time the club has won the championship.

‘Sydney Convicts are the extremely proud to win the Bingham Cup,’ said club president Don Rose. ‘The Amsterdam tournament has been the largest in its history with 2300 players and 72 teams.

‘After 3 days of Rugby the Convicts ‘A’ progressed unbeaten into the grand final and in an extremely tough and hard fought final against the New York Gotham Knights we came away with the Bingham Cup for the 5th time.

The Sydney Convicts B side also won the Bingham Shield. Rose and said both victories were a ‘testament to the preparation and hard work of the whole club leading up to the tournament.’

The International Gay Rugby Association and Board tweeted its congratulations to the Sydney team.

More than 2,300 other LGBT rugby players from all over the world took part in the gruelling three day event in Dutch capital.

For the first time ever a women’s competition ran alongside the men’s event. There were four teams in all and, according to the Bingham Cup website, the Netherlands’ All Blues team won the competition. They beat a global team called the World Barbarians 22 – 5.

The Bingham Cup has now been held nine times since it started in 2002. Seventy teams in all competed for the Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament cup. The biennial event is named after Mark Bingham, who died in the 9/11 attacks.