Prep Rugby and Cross Country

Our U11 rugby team were the winners of the bowl trophy at the recent Brentwood U11 rugby tournament. They opened up well in the group stages with a win over St Cedd’s school from Chelmsford and then had some tight fixtures against The Perse School from Cambridge and Bancrofts each time losing by a single try despite having virtually all possession and the territory. However this did inspire some more direct rugby in the closing stages of the Bowl trophy, eventually resulting in a 3 tries to nil victory over Barnardiston Hall School from Suffolk in the final.

In addition to this, the U10 team reached the semi-finals of the UCS tournament having qualified through the group stages beating Thorpe House and Belmont and then narrowly losing to Chesham by a single try to nil despite going over the opposition try line twice but each time being adjudged to have drifted in to touch. This set up a tense semi-final against Gayhurst from Gerrards Cross and in a very  close game Habs had to give second best to a break away try scored in the last seconds having levelled the score at one try each  just a couple of minutes before. The team are to be congratulated on playing some very aggressive rugby with good width and vision.

At the Berkhamsted cross country relays the Under 8, 9 and 10 teams all gained top three places in their respective races and the U11s finished 4th. The Under 8 team of James O’Callaghan, Daniel Idlbi, Ore Adebayo and Tom Collins finished a close 2nd to the eventual winners from Gayhurst, the Under 9 team (Amar Sanghrajka, Lanre Pratt, Lorcan Farrell and George Metcalf) were 3rd and after a storming run from Sam Buckland in the U10 race, the Habs team (Cameron Pullen, Tom Fielden, Adi Baweja and Sam) moved from 8th at the beginning of the last leg to within a whisker of winning the race overall.

The U11 team battled hard to stay with the early pace and Max Nissim had a very strong last leg to secure 4th place in a sprint finish for the places just outside the medals. The team was Ashwin Kalairajah, Ryo Sato, Ajun Gala and Max.

Well done to all the team members, a great start to what we hope will be a rewarding XC season.