Abingdonian 2018

12 The Abingdonian Rugby After a superb senior rugby tour to Japan the Rugby Club approached the 2017 season with great anticipation. Our Lower School had a great season and created many fond memories. The new first years showed themselves to have passion, hunger and desire for the jersey. Close competitive matches against Dragon, RGS Guildford and Royal Latin showed a season of improvement. Our second years were impressive with some wonderful performances against renowned schools in the area. There were some cracking wins over Cokethorpe, Abingdon Prep and RGS Guildford. The success of the Lower School programme is always how many boys continue to select rugby when entering their third year and it will be great to see how many of these boys will represent the School again next season. The inaugural Lower School trip to Twickenham took 50 pupils with their parents to watch England play Samoa after their own morning fixtures. It was a fantastic day out and one which will be repeated and run by our Touchliner parent committee for the England v Japan fixture next season. The U14 year group had a really good season, with lots of strength and depth across the age group. Our C & D XVs played in some very close highly competitive matches against the likes of Rugby School, Sherborne, and Berkhamsted, winning against Cheltenham College and St Edward’s. The B & A XVs had some big wins against Sherborne and St Edward’s too, and although they might not have come out winners on the score board against