Saint Joseph's Rugby Festival

On Friday 15th October 2010 23 members of the Senior Rugby Team set off for the annual ‘St Joseph’s College National Schools Rugby Festival’ accompanied by Mr Williams, Mr Rooke and Mr Workman. This is a very prestigious tournament attracting entries from all parts of the UK and of the highest quality.

Saturday is pool day and although the groupings are chosen at random we found ourselves in a group with 3 schools who had won the tournament in recent years Colston’s School from Bristol, RGS High Wycombe and last years winners John Fisher School from Surrey.

Saturdays Games

Colston’s V WHS: 7 - 12, both tries scored by Cory Ludwigson with Fraser Robinson converting one, Fred Rowlands and Rhys Woodman creating the scoring opportunities.

John Fisher V WHS: 5 - 10, try scored by Tom Slocombe and conversion plus penalty by Fraser Robinson. The defence was magnificent in this game with huge contributions from Stephen Fresney, Corey Ludwigson and Will Meades in particular.

High Wycombe V WHS: 10 - 10, Will Meades scored a try which Fraser Robinson converted and Fraser added the crucial penalty late on to draw the game and ensure that we won our group.

Our reward for winning the group was a place in the top tournament on Sunday in a 4 Nations group including Millfield School from England, Campbell College from Ireland and Merchiston Castle School from Scotland.

This high quality group proved to be too difficult for our young and tiring squad who performed well in each game but unfortunately went down to 3 narrow defeats. The rugby they played and their sporting nature throughout won many admirers at the tournament and ensured that the reputation of Whitchurch was further enhanced.

Many of the squad will have the opportunity to go again as we were mostly Y12 and indeed had 5 players from Y11 in the squad. Special mention should be made of Jack Rowlands in Y11 who needed to fit in at the crucial number 10 role due to injuries and played exceptionally well in this unaccustomed role.

The notorious M25 meant that a very tired but highly successful touring party arrived back in Cardiff at 9.30 Sunday night.