It has been another superb weekend of schools rugby, not quite as high scoring as last week, but no less impressive and at time surprising.
With that in mind, this week’s top five school teams of the weekend are generally sides that have ground out an impressive win or caught us by surprise, as opposed to last week, where it was generally a series of sides that had won by huge margins – though there is room for one such side again this week.
Here are this week’s Top 5 School Teams of the Weekend:
Cranleigh
We predicted an Epsom College win for this one, despite Cranleigh’s impressive win at St John’s last weekend, not because of any perceived weakness in Cranleigh, but because Epsom are a good team and are a vey very difficult side to beat, especially at home. Their record over the last few years demonstrates that.
That Cranleigh went and turned Epsom over on their own turf, and did so by scoring plenty of tries and ultimately securing a pretty comfortable seventeen point 37-20 victory, tells you an awful lot about how good they are and how good a performance Saturday’s was.
Harrow
For a few years Harrow have had some very good players but have not quite managed to build the collective performances and run of results to go with those players. So far this season that looks to have changed, once again they have excellent players but they are also stringing together some highly impressive results.
Beating Oundle on Saturday was the latest such impressive result, and it really is an impressive one. Oundle are a very good side and are dogged throughout, making them very tough to beat. Grinding out a 15-7 victory was highly impressive from Harrow.
KCS Wimbledon
KCS Wimbledon’s 31-7 victory over Dulwich College is surely the surprise of the weekend. KCS have been in top form all season, make no mistake, we watched them a couple of weeks ago against Caterham and they were outstanding.
However playing Dulwich College is a big step up form the fixtures they had played up to that point in the season, and this is a Dulwich side that the previous week had beaten Wellington College. Yes, Dulwich had played a tough game in midweek too, but this was still a game that KCS were not expected to win.
To go out and win, and not just win but to win very comfortably, is a real triumph for KCS and made them a certainty for our top 5 this week. A truly outstanding victory.
RGS Lancaster
RGS Lancaster have got off to a good start this season, but against King’s Macclesfield few would have predicted the win for them. Not because of anything on their part, but because over the last few years King’s Macclesfield have been incredibly strong, as their dismantling of GSAL in midweek demonstrated.
RGS took the win though, and did so impressively. Digging deep to secure an 18-13 victory and forcing everyone to take note of them in the process. They are certainly now a side to keep an eye on as the season progresses.
Sedbergh
So to our one side in our Top 5 this week who followed last week’s high scoring trend, Sedbergh. It was an almighty score too, 70-14. The remarkable thing though was not actually the score itself, but the opposition that it came against; RGS Newcastle.
RGS are no walkover side, they are a school that teams always assume that they will face a tough battle against. Teams do not put seventy points on them. That Sedbergh did was supremely impressive and demonstrates just what a top side they are, once again. Even more impressive was that at half time they were already fifty points up and had the luxury of being able to rest England U18 star Ali Crossdale for the second half.
Already they are on their own at the top of the Daily Mail Trophy table, and on this sort of form, you would back them to stay there.
What do you think of this week’s Top 5? Let us know who you would’ve picked by comment below or getting in touch via @FifteenRugbyXV or www.facebook.com/FifteenRugby
By Angus Savage
