This week saw the girls playing their first hockey match of the season in an exciting game against Reddam House. It was also a busy week of rugby with pupils taking on teams from Wallingford School, Gillotts School and Caterham School.
1st XV Rugby v Caterham School
Following last week’s disappointing match against Reading Blue Coat, the boys trained really hard throughout the week in order to get a positive result against Caterham. The game started with Shiplake immediately on the front foot, with some strong running lines from the likes of H Allan and F Brown. Unfortunately, an early injury saw J Lynskey out for the rest of the game, however this did not faze Shiplake. After constant pressure from the Shiplake attack, the first try of the match came from a well executed grubber by J Shortland through the Caterham defence and was finished in the corner by B Rivett. After a number of phases, Caterham scored a try to make the score 5-5. The boys continued with phases of relentless attacks, with some well-worked pick and goes by the forwards, leading to two tries from F Brown and H Allan, which were both converted by J Shortland. The first half ended 19-5 to Shiplake.
After a strong half time talk, Shiplake started the second half set on securing their first win of the season. Caterham were similarly determined and only strong defence from the whole team maintained our lead in the early stages. After Caterham began to slip off a few tackles, strong running from F Brown led to another converted try, scored by O Frisby running an excellent support line. Shiplake did not see this as an excuse to relax and continued to pressurise Caterham to stop their strong running game. After a breakout from our own half, good inter-play and support resulted in Shiplake’s fifth try of the match, again converted by J Shortland. A Buchanan then scored Shiplake’s final converted try, making the score 40-5.
As Shiplake tired and lost concentration, Caterham capitalised and scored two converted tries in the final minutes of the game. This is a valuable lesson for us and we’ll continue to work on our game management before our next match. The final score was 40-19 to Shiplake, an excellent result for the whole team. Well done to B Pooler, J Lynskey and J Angell on their debuts.
2nd XV Rugby v Caterham School
On Saturday the much anticipated match against Caterham House took place. The second team wanted to bounce back after a disappointing loss to Reading Blue Coat the week before, however with a number of key players missing from last week due to injury or first team call ups, there was a slight change in the team.
Shiplake started strong and on the front foot with early line breaks lead by R Jones and powerful defence with the likes of M Connolly facing up and knocking attackers back, keeping Caterham in their own half for the first several minutes of the match. Shiplake's pressure was rewarded when the ball met M Bunting storming through the middle of the field on a beautiful line to get Shiplake's first score under the posts. Despite a couple of lapses in the Shiplake line, allowing Caterham to slip on to the scoreboard, Shiplake were still in a driven mood. With another good attacking platform set up by Shiplake, the forwards pack got to work driving the team towards the line until good vision and coordination from our two half backs lead to the ball being sent down the line for T Carpenter to run over the try line in the corner! This was followed by a glorious conversion by K O'Hare.
However, the strong team's drive seemed to slip over half-time, as inexperience seemed to seep into the performance with a lack of discipline and a number of unforced errors becoming Shiplake’s worst enemy. A late injection of power into the game came from P Kenny on the sideline bringing the Shiplake spirits up with a spike in performance across the field. Hard work at the break down and the tackle area from the back row gave Shiplake another chance for possession, however, it was too little too late as Caterham managed to utilise Shiplake's mistakes and take the score line with them.
The team trained well on Monday having learnt tough lessons on Saturday and are looking forward to showing a driven and powerful performance against Lord Wandsworth College on Wednesday.
Man of the match from Saturday goes to M Collony for his tenacity in defence.
Report by C Ambrose-McCormack
3rd XV v Wallingford School
The 3rd XV travelled to play Wallingford School 1st XV on Wednesday at Wallingford Rugby Club. They had a few new boys who had joined in the Sixth Form and all proved to be very good players. Wallingford were a better team and scored some excellent tries early on. Shiplake kept trying and playing as well as they could. At half time Wallingford made a few changes and Shiplake managed to score a couple of excellent tries, demonstrating some good handling skills. Despite losing 10-50, all of the boys learnt from the match and everyone enjoyed an afternoon in the sun! Well played to a strong Wallingford side.
3rd XV v Caterham School
On Saturday afternoon, Caterham travelled to Shiplake College to play their match against the 3rd XV. We started off with one man down so Caterham lent us one extra player to make the teams even. Caterham started strong scoring a try early on, but despite this Shiplake kept their hopes up and carried on playing to the best of our abilities. After half time Shiplake quickly came back to score an excellent try, followed closely by a second, however, Caterham came straight back with a run of tries. Unfortunately, the score ended 19-40, Well played to Caterham.
U15A v Caterham School
It was quite a long drive to get to Caterham on a very warm day. It was worth it though because of the immaculate pitch, the conditions and the performance of the U15A team! Last year the game was pretty close but this year we really dominated the fixture with a very good team performance. In addition, there were some great individual highlights: A brilliant triple (try) from R Logan and also some excellent tries scored by F Wilson, B Burnett, N Floyd. Most of all though, we were really pleased that the entire squad contributed to a great game of rugby to beat a Caterham side who were very well organised and had an extremely strong pack. We can always do better and will learn from some of the mistakes we made. We look forward to our next game against Lord Wandsworth College on Wednesday! Well played boys. Final score 47-5.
U15B v Caterham School
After a long bus journey to Surrey, the U15Bs started their game against Caterham School with authority. We started strongly, keeping possession of the ball and turning the ball over in the breakdowns. This allowed L O’Donohue to run in and score in the corner to take the early lead, 5-0. After a nice conversion by J Durkan, the U15Bs continued to show very good passing and attacking skills and maintained dominance in the breakdowns. This enabled them to stay in the Caterham half and eventually led to H Hickman running round the outside and scoring under the posts, followed by another nice conversion. We started the second half a couple of tries up but this didn’t make us overconfident and we kept pushing Caterham back into their half. This led to Shiplake scoring two more tries; both by H Inch. Overall, the team played very well and the final score was 38-0 to Shiplake.
Report by L Byca
U14A v Caterham School
Arriving late, Caterham struggled to get going in the first few minutes conceding three quick tries from three relatively simple line breaks. Thereafter, the opposition looked after the ball with some well-constructed phase play to outflank the Shiplake defence which had been lulled into very poor alignment. That set the pattern for the day; Shiplake making line-breaks at will and Caterham working hard for their scores. A handsome 43-17 victory but if the U14s are to make further progress this term then their target must be to emulate the ball retention of their counterparts in future.
U14B v Caterham School
Our third game of the season saw us come up against Caterham School at home. It was a good, rough game and it finished with a fair score of 10-10. Despite only taking a draw out of the game, Shiplake certainly defended with everything they had on home soil with some key tackles by T Lebeau and B Watkins who kept them from scoring 2 to 3 times with some excellent tackles. The first Shiplake try was by M Wallace, and the second by P White who picked the ball up in our own 22 and ran the whole length of the field, side stepping several people before he finally scored the try! The whole team highlight would be us all hitting the rucks and turning the ball over on many occasions! Well done to B Watkins for Man of the Match.
U14C v Caterham School
An end-to-end match expertly reffed by Mr Jones resulted in the improbable score of 34-34, with the sides swapping the lead five times during the three fifteen minute thirds. K Askey put away three of our six tries, and J Gosby two, with H Palmer-Garret converting two. E Houghton was especially strong in defence (as well as running in a try of his own), and this week's captain, J Jones proved a very capable leader and communicator. An impressive and spirited performance from the boys, some of whom are very new to the game.
U13A v Gillotts School
The U13 team welcomed Gillotts on a very sunny Friday afternoon. The boys enjoyed playing on the first team pitch which inspired both teams to produce some excellent rugby. The teams were evenly matched for the most part, although Gillotts had a number of strong runners and more experienced players. Some excellent running from H Steele saw two tries for him and our work at the breakdown was excellent. We finished the afternoon with an invitational 'Barbarians' game which featured mixed-up teams with every Gillotts player and every boy in Year 8 involved. Final score 25-15 to Shiplake College.
1st XI Hockey v Reddam House School
On Monday, the 1st XI hockey girls played their first game against Reddam House. The match began with great attacking from L Pasmore and E Thomas on the wing, getting the ball up the pitch. Unfortunately, this was followed by a push from Reddam allowing them to get the ball into the D and securing a goal. At half time, the score was 2-0 to Reddam. Coming back for the second half, our defenders M Simpson, L Worthington and E Booth stayed tight on their players as well as our goalie A Hallam, saving some fantastic goals. This meant that Reddam did not score any goals in the second half. In the last few minutes of the game Shiplake scored an excellent goal from a short corner that was set up by A Galpin and pushed in by P Whitfield, leaving the final score 2-1 to Reddam. A very positive start to the season as well as A Galpin being awarded player of the match.
