A positive start for Rugby at Godalming College

The rugby programme has made a positive start to the year with over 85 players on the register for rugby; the standard has once again gone up another level.  We started our season off with a pre-season trip to our friends on the coast, Worthing College.  It was good to match up against a quality outfit and see where we are as a group leading into once again a competitive league and cup season against some quality teams that only seem to be getting better as the years go on and teams become more established.  Worthing ran out 24-12 winners, but it was good to see the new crop of Lower Sixth students step up and show what they could do from the trials process.  

 

Our league campaign kicked off against Peter Symonds at home at the beginning of September, which is always a tough test.  The lads came together well putting together a complete performance and winning the game comfortably 37-7 with standout performances from Dan Cassidy, Felix Porter on debut and MVP Liam Millane, following in his brother footsteps.  Our attention then turned to cup action, where we were drawn against Worthing.  We last faced Worthing in the cup in the quarter finals of the National Cup where we lost with a brilliantly slotted last-minute penalty from Worthing in the dying embers of the game.  The lads once again were terrific in their performance and unfortunately came up just short by 3 points and it was then sadly that our cup campaign came to an end in what was a very good game of rugby and highlighted how strong rugby is in the South East region at college level.  For the first time ever at Godalming College, we were able to field two team playing on the same day with the development team having a run out against Reed’s School with lots of exciting players playing a highly competitive game.  The game finished 27-27 in what was a fair reflection of the talent on show by both teams.  We look forward to welcoming Reed’s in the next term.

 

Heading into October and our attention turned to league action once more where we faced off against Newman College 3rd XV.  An injury crisis has hit the squad towards the end of this term resulting in 6 players being unavailable for the game, which gave the opportunity for people to make their debuts such as Dhillon Bumrah, Pablo Vessey and the long awaited debut of Luke Marden to performance squad action.  The lads started slowly, gifting a 12-0 lead to Newman’s who took their opportunities well off transition.  The boys showed great character to claw it back and ended up pulling away to win 26-12, with some individual performances from Dan Chinnock, Patrick Sykes and once again Dan Cassidy.

 

The girls have also had a strong start to the year.  This month, they went down to Havant RFC to play in the AoC Regional 10s Tournament against a host of other colleges that are more established with their girl’s programmes.  The girls shone in their matches playing 4 overall, winning 2 and losing 2, all whilst only having 6 players, who gave absolutely everything.  Elisabeth Davies played in her first ever game of rugby, Erin Knight was excellent and captain Freya Sharp lead the team very well with composure and energy.

 

A successful start to the year for the rugby programme, we look forward to finishing the term off strongly.

 

Jonny Burden - Head of Rugby

 

Godalming College is an official British & Irish Lions Origin school. Our Rugby Programme includes a Partnership with the Harlequins Community, RFU Qulified Coaches, weekly trainings, strenghth & conditioning and nutrtion advice.