Year 5 & 6 tag rugby- London Youth Games
On Thursday 22nd March 2018, Years 5 & 6 went to represent Southwark as the reigning borough champions at the London Youth Games, at the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace. Having won the Southwark Championships, our talented rugby players were up against the other 31 borough champions of London. We knew, whatever the result, that it was a monumental achievement.
We arrived in eager anticipation, and were drawn with (in our first group) Kensington & Chelsea, Battersea and Hounslow (the eventual winners of the competition). We emerged a respectable 2nd from our first group, with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Kensington and Chelsea being the highlight. Well worked tries from Julius and Jeremiah proved too much for the opposition who couldn’t handle their pace and slick handling. We battled hard, especially in defence, against a superb Hounslow side who had to show their class to break our defensive line. To pose the eventual champions of London some problems with our pace and speed in defence was very encouraging indeed.
As we finished second in our group, we were placed in the top half of the draw (teams 1-16) and were still in with a chance of winning the overall London cup. We were drawn against Bromley, Croydon and Wandsworth who all respectively brought very strong teams. In our first game of the group we played a very strong Wandsworth team, emerging 2-1 winners. Tries from Adrian and Julius gave us hope of topping the group. In our next game Bromley, who have always brought very strong sides to the London Youth Games, proved too strong for us and we lost a narrow game 3-2. Raya particularly impressed in this game with her fantastic effort in defence.
In our last group, we made it into the 13-16th placed play-offs against Islington, Hackney and Bexley. We beat a strong Bexley side 2-1, with the highlight being an intelligent interception from Jeremiah which turned out to be the difference between the two sides. We drew and then lost our other two games in the group against Islington and Hackney, but were resolute in defence and never gave up. This meant that out of a total of 32 borough champions at the games, we finished a respectable 15th.
A superlative effort from everyone involved- what a great achievement from our rugby players here at St Joseph's!