U17/18 Rugby Tour

Following a long relaxing summer after GCSE and predicted grade exams, the 2021 pre-season trip to Newcastle provided the Upper and Lower Eighth years with the first opportunity to play inter-school rugby for nearly two seasons. Arriving at the Leafy Jesmond Hotel, the players were exposed to the finest buffet in the North: something that helped ameliorate the 6:30 a.m. wake-ups and the half-hour trudges to the RGS Newcastle pitches.

Once on the fields, the passes soon began to stick between year groups, despite never having trained together, and it was clear that this group of players was managing to pick up the structure of flashes, drags, and hammers as well as any other year. Although it was clear that we were likely not to be the biggest team on the circuit this season, we had the arsenal to move larger outfits around the park. For dinner, however, we gave our best attempts to bridge the gap at Rio’s ‘All you can eat’ Brazilian Steakhouse, a blueprint developed through the years by the rugby club as the most effective way to bulk up athletes in pre-season. The next day would see surfing in the North Sea. More of a character-building exercise than anything, this provided some extra team bonding within the year groups. With all training now being tailored to the match against Newcastle the next day, the beach also provided the prime location to run through some ‘backs moves’ and ‘line outs’, sure to leave RGS quaking. Later in the evening, we took to some minigolf and darts, aiming to calm the nerves before the big game tomorrow. With no injuries luckily so far in pre-season, tomorrow would hopefully see the strongest St Paul’s outfit put out against the Geordies. The next day was met with slight nerves but calm confidence, with both teams having played their respective RGS year groups before we roughly knew what to expect, and not read too heavily into the three Falcons academy players that the school’s Twitter promised we would face. The game began with a speech for the ages from Captain Turley, ensuring that everyone’s attention was on the next 40 minutes.

The game started hard but soon St Paul’s found themselves in the ascendance with heavy direct running lines from both backs and forwards carving RGS to shreds. What was most pleasing to see was how the moves that had been implemented throughout the past few days came to the fore and soon 17 points on the board were awarded to the visitors. What followed was some emphatic defence, ensuring that RGS be kept scoreless on their home pitch, with Mr. Strang getting one over on his alma mater. Overall, this pre-season trip, although not to Japan or South Africa as in previous years, proved to be just as good preparation for the season that was to come, a highly enjoyable one, that the U18s thank Mr. Blurton and Mr. Strang for organising. ❚

SPORT