School rugby high on the agenda despite Six Nations

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Before the attention of the entire rugby community is diverted almost uniformly towards events in the Six Nations over the next few weeks, I thought I would take this opportunity to outline our major schoolboy rugby areas of focus over that period.

The Daily Mail Cup is now at the quarter final stage, and across both age groups, Cup and Vase, it has been a tournament of almost unprecedented levels of excitement.

Big names have fallen, small names have shown that they really must be considered big names now, but most importantly the rugby has been of an excellent standard at both age groups, the Hampton v Whitgift game was played in sub zero temperatures and yet they still produced one of the best games of rugby of any level that I have seen. That sentiment has been echoed across many of the fixtures.

Perhaps the most pleasing aspect though has been, as someone astutely pointed out to us on Twitter recently, that the transfer of talent and success from U15 level to U18 level has been very noticeable.

The likes of Truro School, Northampton School for Boys and Wilmslow High performed well at U15 level in the past few players and those players have matured and taken their sides through to the last 8.

It is pleasing to see these sides, and others, show that growing a side and letting them mature together is every bit as effective as bringing in imports.

Naturally then the Daily Mail Cup will be high on our agenda over the next few weeks, and we will be keeping you up to date with every game – beginning with King’s Macclesfield’s rearranged fixture against Wirral Grammar School tomorrow.

The Independent Schools RFC (The Lambs) will also be taking up a big part of our coverage, as you will have seen that they have recently too.

Their talented group of players is drawn from schools across the country, all with a commitment to play beautiful attacking rugby. Their desire to give those who do not want play professional rugby, or narrowly miss out on the chance to, a platform without the pressure of results is refreshing and they are an institution for us all to admire.

Their 52-15 win over the Irish Exiles in their opening game of the season was an early indicator of what a great side to watch, and I would recommend to all rugby fans to pop over to watch them if you can.

The Aviva Premiership Under 18 League is also still underway, though there was only one fixture this week as Exeter beat Saracens 10-5 thanks to a sensational try from Millfield School’s Sam Denham.

So far the league has been a tremendous success, with players from schools across the country involved. The integration of players from AASE College’s and regular Independent and State school’s has been very successful by all accounts.

Leicester have so far looked like they are a class above the rest, but Leicester do that right through to the 1st team so it should come as no surprise.

We’ll be following the League through to its conclusion though and we hope to bring you some exciting news and footage from it over the coming weeks, I have attached the League Tables at the foot of the page.

Of course we will also be keeping an eye out on regular season school games and keeping you up to date with the latest news and results from across the country, while also looking to add some fresh schools to our ‘headline’ schools after being impressed by a number of teams so far this year.

I will of course be keeping you up to date with the latest twists and turns in the Six Nations too though, beginning with England v Scotland on Saturday where I will be doing a live twitter feed throughout the game which you can follow on @FifteenRugbyXV

That’s all for now folks, enjoy this weeks coverage, there’s Daily Mail, U18 League and plenty of friendly fixtures plus all the Six Nations build up.

By Angus Savage (@AngusSavageXV)

U18 League – South Conference

Team

Pld

W

D

L

BP

PTS

Saracens

3

2

0

1

2

10

Wasps

3

2

0

1

1

9

Harlequins

3

2

0

1

1

9

Exeter

2

2

0

0

0

8

London Irish

3

1

0

2

2

6

Bristol

2

0

0

2

2

2

Bath

2

0

0

2

0

0

U18 League – North Conference

Team

Pld

W

D

L

BP

PTS

Leicester

4

4

0

0

4

20

Gloucester

3

2

0

1

1

9

Sale

2

2

0

0

0

8

Newcastle

3

1

0

2

0

4

Northampton

2

0

0

2

1

1

Worcester

3

0

0

3

1

1

Leeds

1

0

0

1

0

0

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