Chronicle Summer 2023

62 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

drawing with Hymers College 12-12 and defeating St Peter’s, York 21-19. This set of results saw the boys progress to the knockout stages of the competition and the quarter finals where our opponents were Bromsgrove. Unfortunately, this is where the Rosslyn Park journey ended in a 22-5 defeat and it marked the end of a fantastic two days for the boys and the School’s highest finish in the competition for a number of years. The U16s also had a great season and were entered into two competitions, Oakham and Rosslyn Park. Oakham proved to be a great first hit for the boys, and they finished third in their group with a 30-0 win against the Royal United School, a narrow loss 15-10 to Oundle and a 20-5 loss to Stamford. This saw the boys progress to the knockout stages of the Bowl where they faced Framlingham in the final. The match was hard fought, but the boys pulled it out of the bag to take home the silverware with a 19-17 win with scores coming from Charlie Fletcher, Thomas Perez Claramunt and Will Mowat and two conversions from the boot of Hector Higgins. As the boys entered Rosslyn Park week they had taken a lot of confidence from Oakham, however they were faced with a tough group and with an injury to one of their lead players, Will Mowat, they knew the challenge that awaited them. A loss to Reed’s in the first game (14-26) and a win against Hayes (24-12) meant that the boys needed to beat Jumeriah English Speaking School by a significant margin to progress through to the elimination match. Unfortunately, it was not to be the boys’ day as they went down 31-14 to a very good JESS team. The U14s participated in the Stowe Festival in the lead up to Rosslyn Park and enjoyed a great day out with wins against MCS 29-5 and Abingdon 24-12 but also suffered defeats to Bromsgrove 167-22 and Stowe 42-0. This first hit out gave coaches Euan and Arthur Friend a good idea of the work needed in preparation for Rosslyn Park. Rosslyn Park arrived and the boys found themselves in a tough pool with West Monmouth, Tonyrefail and Shiplake. A win against Shiplake (20-17) and lossess to West Monmouth (24-0) and Tonyrefail (26-12) weren’t enough to see the boys progress through to day two of the tournament.

The departing members of the 1st XV after their last match at Teddies; Freddie Walton, Louis Davies, Hamza Ali, Egor Varivoda, Oliver Sedgwick, Bertie Withers Green, Archie Crawford and Joss Harrison

VIIs Usually we look forward to drier pitches and brighter weather in the VII’s season however this season proved to be quite the opposite. However, despite the weather all our VIIs teams produced results to be proud of. The 1st VII entered four tournaments at Pangbourne, Oakham, Surrey and Rosslyn Park National Competition and they performed well at each. At Pangbourne we were unable to select our strongest squad due to other commitments and unavailability, but the squad came away winning two out of five games and narrowly missing out on qualification to the knockout stages. The next event at Oakham proved to be a much more successful competition for the squad with wins over Felsted and St Joseph’s in the group stages however a loss to Bromsgrove meant that we were battling it out for the plate. Unfortunately we were defeated by Stowe 19-14 in the semi-finals and denied the opportunity to compete for silverware. The performances at the Oakham Tournament gave the boys a lot of confidence moving into the Surrey event. There was a sense of anticipation in the air as the boys boarded the bus and set off to Richmond only to receive an email from the Tournament organisers saying that the competition had been cancelled due to bad weather. The boys certainly didn’t let this disappointment deter them, attendance

and commitment at training ramped up in preparation for Rosslyn Park National VIIs Vase Competition. Owing to traffic problems, day one started with the boys arriving at the pitch two minutes before kick off for the game against Queen’s College, Taunton. Despite our late arrival and some of the boys taking the field in various items of School uniform we ran out 50-0 winners. The day continued in fine fashion with further wins over Collegiate 28-17 and Hills Road Sixth Form 19-12. This saw us top our group and set up an elimination match against Dean Close which would see the winners progress through to day two of the competition. The boys saved their best rugby of the day for this match and we ran out 29-12 winners with two tries from Freddie Walton, two from Oliver Sedgwick, and Aidan Walker and Charlie Mason adding two conversions from the boot. Day two saw us in a second-round pool with RGS Newcastle, Hymers College and St Peter’s, York. The match up of the day saw Teddies take on RGS Newcastle on one of the show pitches which was live streamed on the Next Gen XV YouTube channel and by all accounts most of the School downed tools to watch. Thankfully the boys didn’t disappoint and ran out easy winners, 26-5. The boys carried this fine form into the remaining pool matches,