convincing winners against the highly respected visitors. Captain Joe Lawton & Jamie Birdsall combining exceptionally well in the half backs to provide quick attacking ball for the speed merchants to use effectively. Unfortunately, late in the second half the boys ended up conceding several penalties to an over officious referee and had Sam Vose sin binned for seemingly nothing; and King William made the extra man count to win by two points.


Our adventure in the Daily Mail Vase was to prove short lived this year as the boys sadly underperformed against Scarborough College in a replay of a game that was abandoned due to a medical issue with one of the QE players. This was a huge disappointment for the boys as they had dominated the original match and were well ahead when the game had to be stopped. A team meeting after this reaffirmed the direction we wanted to go as a team and we remained undefeated for the rest of the year.


A convincing win against Read School and then the best performance I have witnessed from any team in my time at QE resulted in a resounding win against Lincoln Minster where we scored 5 excellent tries and kept our defence intact. This was a very proud day for me as a coach as everything the boys had been working towards for the past two years finally came through and it was a fantastic way to end the term.


The team has been excellently led throughout the year by Captain and scrum half Joe Lawton. Joe has led by example all year in both training and match situations. Other players of note throughout the year include Leeds Carnegie prospect Ben Dent who has the potential to play at the highest level if he continues to push himself, it has been pleasing to see Ben’s younger brother Adam forcing his way into the 1st XV and he was able to play in several games alongside his older brother. One of the reasons the team attacks so well is due to the creativity and flair of fly half Jamie Birdsall, with Jamie being a lower 6th student we will have another year ahead of him here at QE and great things are expected of him in the future. Most improved player of the year is Stephen Bellamey, who made a great transformation from playing centre to being used as either a flanker or hooker with great success. Two newcomers into the fold this year were forward Tom Fisher and centre Alex Gardiner. Tom has progressed greatly from not playing rugby in his previous years at QE to becoming a cornerstone of the front row alongside Matthew Wagh. Alex Gardiner had a great debut performance against the Old Boys, but then struggled to recapture


117


Boys’ Sport


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