After much planning and organization the squad eventually left S.Anselm's after lunch on Saturday 13th September and made the journey north to Cumbria and to Sedbergh School. We arrived in brilliant sunshine and immediately took the the pitches for an opportunity to run the journey out of our systems and to run through a few plays in preparation for the Preparatory Schools Tournament the following day. It wasn't long before the players had worked up a good sweat and we set off for supper in the Queen's Hall where the boys got to know the team from Caldicott School (Berkshire). We returned to Killington Lake and checked into our accommodation for snacks, TV and an early bed.
Sunday saw us wake to bright sunlight and super views of the Lake District. A magnificent breakfast completed the superb start to the day and we set off at 9am for Sedbergh.
Our first game saw us pitted against St. Olave's, York who were the defending champions and winners of the National Schools 7s in 2007. On Sedbergh's 1st XV pitch (simply enormous - as wide as most prep pitches are long) both sides lacked structure and the game was far from easy on the eye. That said, we competed well for the majority of the match, conceding points as a result of lack of concentration rather than lack of effort, and the final whistle saw us coming off second best by 15 - 0.
The second match saw us up against St. Mary's Hall (Stonyhurst). This was a most disappointing affair and by far our worst performance of the weekend; we created chances only to spill the try scoring pass on a number of occasions, missed tackles and failed to chase kicks. We eventually lost 5-0 in a game that we should have won by 20 points.
By this stage things were looking bleak - we had only 2 more games in which to find a victory or we would be eliminated from the competition at lunch timesome stern words followed from both coaches and players and the XV took the field in a determined state of mind. From the first kick we looked a better side as we chased, harried and put St. Martin's Ampleforth under pressure. Rob crossed the line to score our first points of the tour and whilst we should have scored more tries (the final pass proving beyond us again) all were relieved when the whistle blew and we came away victorious.
A classical 'post match euphoria' took over (one would have thought that we had won the world cup!) and in spite of the best efforts of the coaching staff the team took the field against The Oratory (London) looking rather too pleased with themselves. They soon came down to earth with a bump as The Oratory rattled of 3 quick tries and we found ourselves trailing by 17 points at half time. A more spirited second half performance saw the second period drawn 0-0 but this was, in short, a less than satisfying result.
Having qualified for the plate competition we faced Aysgarth in the semi-final. Aysgarth were the more structured team and made us pay dearly for any mistakes we made. In addition we simply could not handle the pace of their backs and they cruised to a 21 point lead before we managed a revival; a period of sustained pressure from S. Anselm's saw Rob cross for his second try of the day and the final score of 21-7 was probably a fair representation of the match.
Presentations and match tea followed before we stepped out into Sedbergh for a great Tour dinner at the Bull Hotel before heading off for a second night at Killington Lake (more snacks and TV before bed).
Monday morning saw another excellent breakfast, a flat battery in the minibus (jump-leads soon solving the problem) and the return trip to S. Anselm's.
My thanks go to the Tour Fund Committee for their generous donation, to Mr. Burnett for his coaching expertise and for his intelligent offerings during post-match analysis sessions and to all the parents and friends who supported the tour.
RJM Sept 08
Posted on
Thu, September 18, 2008
by admin