On Wednesday Oakham and Stowe go head to head in a huge U18 Schools Cup clash, the Midlands A Regional Final.
NextGenXV will travel to Rutland to live stream this crucial encounter in the last 16 of the Schools Cup as last year’s Plate Champions, Stowe, head to the home of the 2002 and 2003 champions, Oakham.
You will be able to watch the game live on our YouTube channel as well as on TikTok and via the embedded video below.
It should be an absolutely epic encounter, these two sides are playing some magnificent rugby this season, with Oakham currently unbeaten and Stowe having not lost since the very first day of the season – they are looking like two of the very best in the business.
There is history between these two groups, just 8 months ago they met in the Vase final of the Rosslyn Park HSBC National School 7s, Stowe won that one but it is a measure of the quality available to both ahead of this game.
That history between these specific groups goes all the way back to the 2019/20 U15 Schools Cup, where the current U6th met in the U15 Schools Cup semi finals. Stowe were at home that day and claimed a 15-5 victory, and perhaps coupled with that Rosslyn Park result, they have a slight psychological advantage, but this game really does feel on a knife edge. Even when these groups met as U14s it was the narrowest of margins for Stowe.
This season Oakham have faced, and beaten, Brooksby Melton College, Rugby, Bromsgrove, and Oundle, while beating their oldest rivals Uppingham handsomely in the Cup ahead of a highly impressive 33-7 victory over Warwick in the round prior to this.
For Stowe the season began with a tight 12-10 defeat at Stamford, but since then it was been a flying season, with victories over Oundle, Rugby, and Bromsgrove to go alongside Cup victories over Bloxham and King’s Worcester.
Against the three common opponents, Rugby, Bromsgrove, and Oundle, both have sealed victories, though Stowe by a slightly greater margin.
Perhaps that adds to a slight sense of Stowe as marginal favourites, but with it being so marginal, consider Oakham are at home, and have not lost this fixture at 1st XV level since 2015.
It really does feel like a game that is on an absolute knife edge, and what better way for a regional final to be set up in the U18 Schools Cup!
