High School hit Irish for Six

40 boys from S1, S2 and S3 as well as 5 staff left school last Friday for a tour of Northern Ireland. We were based in the White Horse hotel just outside Derry. As well as playing several fixtures there was also some time set aside for sightseeing.

Saturday morning saw the Under 13’s and under 14’s play Cambridge House Grammar School, Ballymena... The weather was pretty grim, but both teams manage to secure victories. Oliver Perry ran riot and helped the under 14’s win 43-5. Douglas Hazell was the outstanding contributor to the under 13’s 19-5 victory. The boys responded well to the different laws and interpretations but will hopefully find the return match on Thursday afternoon at Anniesland a bit more to their liking, as they will be played under our normal staged development laws. The afternoon was spent back at the hotel watching Scotland defeat Wales.

Sunday was a day of rest and a trip to the Giant’s Causeway was organised. The boys seemed to enjoy watching the waves crash against the rocks and there were plenty of photo opportunities for catching Chris Barnes acting as the giant. The afternoon was spent 10 pin bowling in Portrush.

Most of Monday was spent on the buses as we made our way to Enniskillen for two matches against Portora Royal School. We were told that we were the first Scottish tourists to reach them in living memory. Again both teams were victorious with Andrew Duncan leading the way for the under 14’s in a 25-7 win and Andrew Hazell being the man of the moment for the under 13’s in their 22-10 victory, although Robbie Fraser will claim that he should have been man of the match. Maybe he would have been had he played the whole game! Oscar Wilde was an old boy of Portora and we kept up the English Literature part of the trip by visiting W.B. Yates’ grave in Sligo on the well back to the hotel.

The whole tour party met with the Deputy Mayor of Derry in the Guildhall on the Tuesday morning before playing the final matches against Foyle and Londonderry College. These two games proved to be the hardest of all the fixtures on tour. The under 14’s held out to win14-12 with Scott Fraser being the pick of the bunch. The under 13’s decided to give the opposition a 17 point head start before they got their act together. Chris Barnes led the charge as they managed to turn around the match to win 21-17. There was an awards night held at the hotel later that evening where it was decided that Andrew Duncan (U14’s) and Richard Murray (U13’s) were to be awarded the accolade of Tourist of the trip for their respective age groups. This took in to account not just their on field performances but also what they did off the field.

We departed from the hotel on Wednesday morning and returned to Anniesland for tea time, although I image that most of the boys gave food a miss and headed for a good night’s sleep.

We were warmly welcomed wherever we went and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. I would say to anybody who was thinking of arranging a tour to Ireland that it is well worth visiting schools and clubs further west than Belfast if you can managed it. This was the third junior rugby tour to Northern Ireland, but never before have we returned undefeated. The boys have learnt a lot in a short time and will hopefully keep their form for the remainder of the season.

This article was posted on 19-Feb-2007, 08:27 by Hugh Barrow.