Rosslyn Park

22 March 2016

After our victorious campaign in the Festival Tournament in 2015, the organisers of the Rosslyn Park National Tournament put us into the new ‘Cup’ section this year. As a one term co-ed rugby school that practises 7s once a week, we were very different from the majority of schools in the Cup Competition, most of whom were all boys', two term, rugby schools, or were colleges that had teams made up of academy players who study part time.

We won three of the four matches in the group stage, putting us at the top of the group and progressed to the next day as one of the top 16 schools. On the second day we won our matches against Coleg Sir Gar, John Fisher School and St Joseph’s College and made it to the Plate Final against Barnard Castle which we won 24-12.

This achievement is every bit as worthy, from a strict rugby point of view, as last year's. The demands of playing nine 7s matches over two days is fierce and only very strong characters can cope with it. The 'never-say-die' attitude of the squad saw them snatch victory in the last play of the game on two occasions. The whole squad displayed enormous drive, persistence, team work, and control of emotions under severe pressure. They were all heroes again and it was a fitting way for the Upper Sixth Form rugby players, who have served Stowe rugby so well, to end their schoolboy rugby careers.

Craig Sutton, Senior 7s Coach