This Tuesday Haileybury and Bedford go head to head in the opening round of the Continental Tyres Schools Cup at 3pm.
NextGenXV will be at the Hertfordshire school to LIVE stream the game, which will be available on the NextGenXV YouTube Channel and through the embedded video below.
The two actually met at the same stage last year, Bedford winning an absolute thriller 26-20 at Haileybury, they went on to meet Finborough in the third round and though they were knocked out by the eventual semi finalists, they gave them their closest game of the term. Haileybury meanwhile enjoyed a good Plate run after that Bedford defeat, reaching the semi finals against Barnard Castle.
Both sides have had some thrilling games to start their seasons off with and have identical records having each played three and won one. Interestingly enough both of their victories were in exciting contests at Rugby School, each live streamed here on NextGenXV and you can check out how those games went below.
For Haileybury that Rugby game sandwiched narrow defeats to Felsted and Stamford, two games in which they gave incredibly good accounts of themselves, indeed you can relieve that Stamford performances below.
For Bedford their victory over Rugby is sandwiched by a tight loss to Oundle and a good performance from Radley College. All of which is to say that Tuesday looks as though it should be a fantastic contest, both sides look so evenly matched.
Bedford have had the greater Cup pedigree, with an U15 title in 2006 and a Champions Trophy title in 2015, but Haileybury are drawing on a superb group of players, including a L6th group that only lost once all through last year.
Once up a time this was a regular fixture on the calendar, but from 2009 to 2017 it went off the list. It returned though in 2018 and 2019 with a victory for each side, before Covid stopped it again until last year’s Cup meeting. How Bedford would love for a repeat of that, but the Haileybury camp are going to be absolutely determined to reverse it. A good Plate run was nice, but they want more.
We should be in for a brilliant contest on Tuesday afternoon!
Haileybury v Bedford – Continental Tyres Schools Cup Round 1 – Tuesday, 3pm, LIVE
