On Wednesday 9th November, the SVS 1st XV Rugby team played against The Skinners’ School in the fourth round of the National Vase competition. Alfie Jarrett (Upper Sixth) wrote a report on the game below:

Skinners’ have always been strong opponents. We met them last year in the fifth round of the National Vase and the close match finished 14-5 in our favour. This meant that this time, they were looking for redemption. The game started well for us with a superb charge down by Barnaby Merrett (Upper Sixth), who went on to score in the corner. From then on, our performance was unfortunately sub-standard with mistakes being made all over the pitch.

Max Lindsay (Lower Sixth) kicked well but Skinners’ kept coming back, scoring tries but failing to convert. We defended our line for a long time, giving away several penalties which eventually led to a yellow card. As the half time whistle blew, we had a narrow lead of 12-10. Our second half performance was slightly better but still not up to our usual level. With Max scoring and Henry Keith (Upper Sixth) going over as well, we increased our lead. However, Skinners’ kept coming back until eventually Barnaby scored from a touch and go penalty.

The game finished with a win of 27-22 but we were disappointed with how we had played. We now move forward to the fifth round of the competition where we will face Ravens Wood School. We have learnt from this performance and plan to build on it.