The Year 10 and Year 11 Rugby teams travelled to Horsham on Friday 19th March 2010 for the County Shield 10’s tournament. Each of the 9 County Sports Partnerships had run a ten a side festival and Bishop Luffa were representing the West Sussex West Sports Partnership.
The Year 10’s faced a selection headache with a number of influential backs missing, nether the less the team started in high spirits when they faced Heathfield School. The fast paced game was extremely tight with Heathfield eventually breaking the deadlock with a break away try. Alex Grace bravely battled to score an equaliser but the Heathfield defence remained strong. In their second game the boys faced The Forest School. The boys managed to start the game with much greater control. With instructions not to take contact in the centre of the pitch the team wisely dragged the Forest school into the wide channels. A great fly hack and chase by 2nd row Alex Grace resulted in a try in the left hand corner of the pitch. The Forest School came straight back from the kick off to score one of their own under Luffa’s posts. A great piece of skill with a chip and catch by the Forest School’s number 10 saw the Crawley unit take a 2 -1 lead. A further score by Forest led to a 3- 1 defeat. Luffa then secured a walk over win against William Parker School. With all the other teams drawing their matches, Luffa went into their final game knowing that a win to sneak them into the higher placings. Strong linking play between Alex Grace and Charlie Wallace saw Luffa take a 2 try advantage with Wallace scoring both. With minutes to play it seemed as if Luffa had the win in the bag. Angmering Sports College then managed to spin the ball wide and Emmanuel Oluwarunke was out paced for the Mid Sussex school to score in the corner. Like rugby 7’s the scoring team kicks off. Despite instructions explaining this being sent on from the sidelines, hesitation by Luffa led to the Angmering captain kicking off claiming his own kick and scoring in the opposite corner. The 2-2 draw left Luffa frustratingly in 4th place rueing the fact that several backs had proclaimed themselves unavailable on the day of the tournament.
Squad: Alex Grace, Tom Stockon, Grant Harris, Charlie Wallace, Harry Martin, Dzifa Kugbega, Emmanuel Oluwarunke, Ed Cumming, Ed Bowman, Izac Salt.
Next up were the Year 11’s, once again let down by last minute withdrawals in the team. This time though the inspirational Alex Grace and Charlie Wallace were on hand to step in to ensure that the team had 3 replacements to use in the high paced and physical encounters. Captain Richard Foulkes looked closely at the opposition to recognise a number of his Sussex County squad colleagues playing for the Cavendish School. Luffa started the stronger with Will Burrows making his debut in the 2nd row. Great distribution by the backs and good driving by the forwards saw Marcus ? score next to the posts. Luffa knew that possession was key to winning the 10 minute matches and when Ben Clink kicked the ball wide the replacements on the sideline groaned. However, the bounce of the ball took the ball over the head of the unfortunate Cavendish winger and into the grateful hands of Luffa ‘flyer’ Callum Munday who finished under the posts. At half time Luffa sent on fresh legs with Richard Foulkes, Charlie Wallace and Joe Bell all entering the fray. Now attacking up the hill the team knew that they could not afford to let Cavendish break the gain line. Constant pressure eventually payed dividends for Cavendish who were able to break through the centre and score a try of their own. Charlie Wallace reminded the team of the importance of claiming the restart and Luffa responded positively. Sweeping from one side of the field to the other the Luffa players kept the ball alive in the contact zone and eventually dragged the Cavendish players out of position. Callum Munday once again saw his opportunity and skipped past the opposition to seal the 3 tries to 1 victory.
In their next match the Bishop Luffa boys faced Angmering Sports College. With many Worthing players in their midst the Chichester outfit knew that the winners of the match would surely be in with a good chance of winning the tournament. Despite the huge size imbalance of the two teams the pace and control of Luffa’s players did not allow the Worthing partnership team to get their hands on the ball. Once again Callum Munday started the scoring off to give the team an early lead. As the minutes ticked by it was clear that the Angmering backs could cause some damage if they secured the ball, with only second left in the first half a sweeping move saw the scores levelled. Knowing that they were attacking down the hill in the second half the Luffa team knew that possession and control and patience was key to winning the game. The Angmering put on their huge 6ft 3 second row and were clearly intent of pummelling the ball up through the middle with the forwards. One such attack resulted in the Worthing outfit breaking through the defensive line and running half the length of the pitch before being ruthlessly tackled and stripped of the ball by Richard Foulkes and Toby Pattern. Luffa now started to get the upper hand and were camped in the Angmering 22. A quick ball spun out to Ben Clink left the cover defence short and Ben kick wide to a gratefully awaiting Callum Munday. With the tryline at his mercy the winger was stopped short by the referee’s whistle signalling that he had been in an offside position. The somewhat dubious decision signalled the end of a fantastic contest with Luffa knowing that the tournament rested upon the results of the last matches.
Oathall Community college who had been well beaten in all of their matches then made the decision to concede the game to Luffa. With Angmering and Cavendish playing out a stalemate the proud Luffa team were crowned worthy champions. With Toby Pattern proudly proclaiming “this is the first thing we’ve ever won in our time at Luffa“ the boys left delighted at their efforts.
Team: Marcus Clack, Miles Geal, Joe Bell, Lawrence Smaller, Alex Crampin, Will Burrows, Toby Pattern, Ben Clink, Richard Foulkes, Callum Munday, Jack Sawday, Alex Grace, Charlie Wallace.
Mr Tim Brown
Team Leader PE