Ireland U15 & U16 Rugby Tour

IRELAND U15 AND U16 RUGBY TOUR - OCTOBER HALF TERM

Leaving Glyn on Friday before the start of half term was in hindsight a great opportunity to get the long awaited tour going early, to catch the ferry across the Irish Sea. If only it hadn't been for the flooding in North Wales and the heavy traffic this brought with it on the way, which meant we arrived late into the evening after catching a later ferry.

With no professional rugby match in Dublin, we looked to the West coast of Ireland for a taste of rugby for the newly formed URC League. Connacht vs Ospreys was a great afternoon that all the students and Mr Rylance enjoyed. The Irish side coming out winners after an exciting first half display.

The touring party also had time to see what life was like in Galway before he excitement of the World Cup semi-final loomed only to be spoilt by a strong last ten minutes from eventual winners, South Africa.

The Sunday saw the boys have a training session at Suttonians RFC, splash around AquaZone and then probably the highlight of the day GoQuest, a series of small rooms with different challenges to complete giving your team points. 

Even though the tour was Rugby Union focused, the boys got a really full-on experience of the Gaelic sports. This involved playing and training in all three Gaelic sports; Football, Hurling and Handball. We then travelled to Croke Park where we watched some primary school matches taking place in an eighty-two thousand seater stadium and also getting the the full stadium tour.

Thanks to Jacob (11C)'s family for providing the donuts and drinks for this afternoon.

Our last full day in Dublin saw a great tour by Mr Summers and lots of opportunities for presents to be bought.

The day was hampered by the news that Arklow RFC had to cancel both the U15 and U16 matches that evening, due to excessive rains on their pitches.

We did however, manage to find another Rugby Club five minutes from our hotel, to host some training and a small match for the U15s and a pitch for the U16s to have an internal match that can only be described as brutal. A big thank you to Balbriggan RFC for the last minute hosting and to all the boys for getting on with what was a huge disappointment in not having official matches.

A great tour that we certainly will be looking into doing again in the future.

Another big thank you to Mr Summers and Mr Dawson for all their work in getting the tour up and running.