Rugby

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Rugby Football is played as a major sport in the Michaelmas Half alongside Association Football. The number of boys choosing to play the game has increased over the last few years and we now regularly field twenty sides on a Saturday. Eton’s fixture list includes Marlborough, Windsor Boys’ School, Epsom, Tonbridge, St Edward’s, Harrow, Wellington, Radley, St Paul’s, RGS Guildford, Abingdon, Merchant Taylors’, Gordon’s, Reading Blue Coat, Berkhamsted, Reading Oratory, St John’s Leatherhead and John Fisher. There are up to six teams in each block, all of which have their own individual coach.

Boys of all standards are catered for, including those who have not played the game before. All teams play regular fixtures against other schools. Boys progress from the Yearlings through the Junior Colts and Colts to the Senior Sides. The XV embark on a tour each summer in the build-up to the season. These tours tend to be to Scotland or Ireland, although more extensive expeditions are arranged every few years. In August 2004 forty boys spent a very memorable two weeks playing rugby and sightseeing in South Korea, and an equally exciting and challenging tour took place in July 2007 to South Africa, which also served to further Eton’s links with the charity Sethani which seeks to empower the community and relieve orphan poverty in KwaNgcolosi, a semi-rural tribal area of KwaZulu-Natal (see www.sethani.org).

Beyond the school sides, Eton boys are involved in various representative rugby teams; some boys from F block upwards frequently attend the Harlequins Academy. A handful in the XV now have the opportunity at the end of a season to play in the Independent Schools Barbarians match, an initiative now in its third year to give exceptional players the chance to play alongside similar talent from other schools. Many boys continue to enjoy their Rugby after leaving school. In the Lent Half, Rugby Sevens is one of the many minor sports available. The Seniors and Colts play in a succession of tournaments, culminating in the Rosslyn Park National Sevens. In 2006 the Colts side got through to the semi-finals at Rosslyn Park for the first time ever, a feat repeated in 2008, and in 2007 the 1st VII reached the quarter-finals to equal our best effort to date. The Colts VII are the current holders of the very competitive RGS Guildford tournament. There are also a number of tournaments arranged for the Junior Colts and Yearlings, both year-groups reaching semi-finals last season. The last day of the Michaelmas Half is when the Junior and Senior House Sevens take place.

Click here for details of this half’s fixtures,

Click here for information about pitches.
Click here for directions to other schools for away fixtures.