RUGBY MIDGETS 6
Coach: IK Campbell / GHS May Captains: TLV Wilkinson, WVR Shott & HC Bennet
P 6, W 2, L 3, D 1
Ed Andrew, Theo Bantoft and the nippy Hugo Bertie in the latter. Jack Maidment, Joe McDermott, Jimmy Aird, Jamie Bell, Toby Bennett, Ed Elliott, Charlie GirelliKent, William Davie-Thornhill, Toby Strutt, Andrew Liu and John Fu also played.
More than a quarter of the Shell year, 38 boys if my records are right, played at least once for Midgets 6. This obviously provided challenges, and it means that this report can’t tell of a well-oiled, consistent squad and its performances. But it’s nice that so many boys in a big year group got a chance to represent the College. We had some successes in spite of these challenges. Only St Paul’s, Tonbridge and Harrow were able to put out a genuine sixth team against us, and we lost the first of these 36-33 in the last play of injury time, and won the other two, 42-10 and 55-7, which was a great achievement. In other games we lost 24-7 to Sherborne 5ths, and drew with and then lost to Magdalen College School’s 3rds. Sherborne were stronger than usual, and we were probably at our weakest, but we would probably still have won, had it not been for the tries scored by a mis-selection of theirs, who was playing for their 3rds a week or two later. Hundreds of baying senior Sherburnians awaiting their games in the Centenary celebrations probably didn’t help our cause either, but it made for a memorable day.
stability. The tight five was drawn from Alex Wrey, Beetle O’ Kelly, Levon Sarkisov, Kit Merrill, the technically very adept Billy Greenall, Shott, Rory Gearing, Jake Terry (who also played in the backs) and latterly Will Rogers-Coltman. The back row had consistency through number 8 Harry Vyvyan-Robinson, with flankers coming from, amongst others, Ivo Holbech (who later played centre), Tom Boulton, Henry Portwood, and, in the last game, Christoph Wallendahl, up belatedly from the 7ths. Ellis took some replacing, and the way he combined with Tom Sweetnam at number 10 on his brief visit to us was instrumental in our trouncing of Tonbridge. Again too belatedly we promoted Will Goodman, and he did a great job against Harrow, partnering James Wilson at fly half. Ivo Mayfield started at number 10, but went on to make full-back his own and also place-kicked superbly. We had stacks of centres and wings, with most consistency being achieved through Bennett, Holbech, Robin Mathewson and Lucas Ely in the former position, and
Inevitably given the number of practices and the fact that a number of boys ended up with us through deficiencies of attitude rather than talent, there were longuers on occasion in training, but overall the improvement of a number of players was very satisfying. The Harrow coach was even overheard describing us as ‘a very physical side’, which was probably a first at this level. I wish the boys well as they rise up the school some may well play for very good teams in the long run. IKC
St Paul’s away the following week, after a number of changes, went much better and was less tentative. Then in a way the season peaked with the Tonbridge win, before more restructuring was needed for the last four games. It was a shame we did not have more fixtures. The squad went through three phases: firstly, we picked our best side with many training injuries under the leadership of formidable tackler Tristan Wilkinson at number 7; then he and scrum half Cian Ellis got promoted and we had to reorganise; following a big gap there were lots of boys on games and we had more recruits trickle down. Will Shott was captain in the middle, before he too was promoted, and Hugo Bennett skippered the last game. We had a core of ever-presents that provided some
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