This weekend was arguably one of the best weekends of the schools rugby season so far.
As a result it made choosing our Top 5 School Teams of the Weekend a real challenge, as it is every week. This week our entire Top 5 comes from our Focus On list from our weekend preview, after some stunning performances and results across the board.
Top 5 School Teams of the Weekend
Abingdon
Abingdon have started off the season in fantastic fashion, with a strong win over Cheltenham College last week a real high point. However the faced a Warwick side who are stacked with former U15 NatWest Cup winners and finalists and are among the favourites for the title this year. So far they have played like it took, including a win over a Whitgift side who had beaten Wellington College this season. So it was a tall order for Abingdon on Saturday, however they rose to the challenge magnificently, winning the game 18-13 and guaranteeing themselves a place in our Top 5.
Canford
Canford stunned the watching schools rugby community on Saturday as they trounced a good Epsom College wide 51-5. Canford have been in excellent form all season, and a win was certainly expected to be possible, though there were plenty who backed Epsom, too. However what nobody could have expected was the huge margin of victory that Canford achieved – they will now be a side that other schools pay very close attention to for the rest of the season, and they must now be considered dark horses in the Champions Trophy.
Kirkham Grammar School
This Kirkham Grammar School team just seem unable to stop scoring bundles and bundles of points. They have flown through the opening weeks of the season, scoring almost at will. Denstone were expected to be harder work, Kirkham were still firm favourites but they were expected perhaps not to be able to secure the sort of scoreline that they eventually did as the put Denstone to the sword, 55-0. Their game against Abingdon on Friday night is going to be very tasty indeed!
Sedbergh
Sedbergh won this weekend in a manner a little similar to how the All Blacks have won a few games this summer, not at their best, but playing such an irrepressible style of rugby that the points still flood through. And flood they did. Sedbergh beat one of the powerhouses of northern schools rugby, Durham, by a huge 60-13 margin. It was a game that Sedbergh were expected to win, but never by that margin, to have done so and still have plenty of room for improvement is quite staggering.
St Peter’s, York
St Peter’s are unquestionably a good team this year, their solid status in the Daily Mail Trophy Top 10 tells you that. However a fixture against the NatWest Cup finalists, a side still stocked full of U15 NatWest Cup finalists and winners, QEGS Wakefield, was expected to be very tough indeed. It was a tough game, of course, but St Peter’s battled through brilliantly to take a 24-15 victory that the majority of our readers though would go the other way. A brilliant example of belief and determination from St Peter’s.
