CBHS Second XV playing for senior club rugby title this weekend

If the Christchurch Boys’ High School First XV goes on to win this year’s UC Championship, it may not be the first team in their school to win some major silverware this year.

After taking on and beating top-qualifiers Lincoln University in last weekend’s semi-final, the CBHS Second XV is playing in the Canterbury senior club rugby Metro Colts Trophy final on Saturday - against the unbeaten Glenmark club Colts side.

Fielding a team of mostly Year 12s and some Year 13s, the CBHS Second XV has more than held its own this season, playing against older and bigger opposition week in-week out. The Metro Colts competition is the second tier U21s competition, but Colts rugby in Canterbury is recognised as being one of the strongest in the country. CBHS is the only secondary school team playing in CRFU senior club competitions.

“We beat Lincoln University 6-0 last week by scoring two penalties in the first 15 minutes,” said head coach Paul Stewart. “The week before we lost to Glenmark 5-0, conceding a try at the end, and the week before we beat Christchurch 9-6.”

As these results suggest, there’s a fair bit of commitment and team spirit going on.

Team spokesman and blindside flanker, Year 13 student Jack Owen, put it down to “hard work” and “guts.”

“We have a really good culture in our team, everybody gets along. We have got a great manager, Keith Laidlaw, who is really organised and it sets the tone for us,” Jack explained.

“The last couple of weeks we’ve come on a lot. The teams we play are always bigger than us and mostly three and four years older than us, so it’s just gutsy defence on our behalf that’s seen us through. We have got to be smarter than these teams we are playing.

“We don’t have any big names; we just have a lot of guys who are playing for each other.”

The First and Second XVs are tightknit said Jack. “We are closely linked and last week they had a bye so they came out and watched our semi-final. There’s always players going up and down and we train as one squad on Wednesdays.”

Glenmark haven’t lost a game this season, so what’s it going to take to beat them on Saturday?

“We’ve played them twice this season, the first time we went all the way up to Cheviot and we were understrength and they put 20 points on us.

“They beat us 5-0 recently. It was 0-0 the whole game but they scored in the last few minutes. We could’ve snatched it right at the end though, so we are up for it this weekend and we can beat them if we really work at it.”

Earlier in the season the CBHS also had a memorable win over the Otago Boys’ High School Second XV, which plays in the Highlanders First XV competition.  Down 24-27 in the shadows of fulltime, CBHS were awarded a penalty. Instead of kicking a penalty to force a draw they opted for a lineout in the corner and were rewarded with the winning try and a 29-27 win.

“That Otago game was a massive game, and was a turning point in our season,” said Jack. “We went down there and snatched that game at the end. Like our local opposition, they were bigger than us but we stuck to our game.”

Jack said the team is looking forward to having plenty of support for the final against Glenmark. “All the boys from school have been saying they are going to come up, including the Third XV guys who have a bye this weekend. The headmaster has been watching us for the last couple of weeks and he’s really getting in behind us.”

“For me and most of the other Year 13s in the team, this match on Saturday is pretty much as big as it gets.”

CBHS made last weekend’s semi-finals after finishing fourth of 10 teams in the initial round-robin competition. From there the competition was split into two sections that were grouped on first round seedings and the CBHS team finished second to qualify for the top four.

The team heads into this weekend’s final with a record of 10 wins and five losses in 15 games. They have scored 275 points and conceded 190. Jack McLeod is the leading points scorer with 58 and Alex Buk has scored the most tries with six.

The 2015 CBHS Second XV squad is:

Forwards

Isaac Roth

Bill Le - Pine

Ben McKeich

Jackson Ogle

Nick Tibbots

Harden Ali

Henry Adams

Sean Youngman

Nick Inch

Zac Wilson

Jack Owen

Harry Hall

Harry Brown (C)

Rua Harrington

Backs

Cullum Payne

Brad Wang ( VC )

Alex Buk

Adam Gyde

Fletch Thomson

Jordon Baker

Jackson Lynskey-Reid

Matt Jensen

Ryan Frampton

Jack McLeod

Thomas Patterson

Management

Paul Stewart - Head Coach

Nick Percy - Backs Coach

Nick Milne - Forwards Coach

Keith Laidlaw - Manager

Tom Caulder – Assistant Manager