14 / 20
14 SPORTS
Lower Fourth’s Rugby Tour To Edinburgh 2016
Ben Bagley, L4W
We set off on our long anticipated
rugby tour to Scotland with high
hopes after a strong start to the
season. The journey went without
any major problems, until we
arrived at Edinburgh International
Airport and realised that one
of us was missing a passport.
Nevertheless, we continued on to
our first activity of the day, The
Dynamic Earth Exhibition, in good
spirits. This was an interesting way
of learning about geology and the
origins of our planet and by the
end of this activity we were ready
to head to the hostel.
We stayed in rooms of eight, which meant
we didn’t sleep as much as we should have,
bearing in mind the fact we were facing one of
Scotland’s leading rugby schools the following
day. We woke up very tired, but after a hot
shower and a cooked breakfast we were ready
for the day’s first activity, a tour of Murrayfield
Stadium. The tour was very enjoyable and
inspired us for the game against Merchiston
that afternoon.
Merchiston Castle School was incredible, with
pristine cut pitches as far as the eye could see;
this was obviously a school that took its rugby
seriously. Surprisingly, the game itself was
very one sided. We dominated Merchiston
from the start, with three quick tries from
Josh Jerrard in the first five minutes. They had
seriously underestimated us as opposition and
not put out their first team. On the plus side
it gave everyone an opportunity to play. Great
handling from the backs and hard aggressive
work from the forwards meant that we came
out comfortably on top, winning 60-12.
Our second game was against George
Watson’s college, a school with a proud history
of rugby and the champions of Scotland.
They have produced nine international rugby
players and we have produced a grand total
of zero. This didn’t deter us though. Another
aggressive display from the squad meant that
we came out on top in both games. Despite
the fact that George Watson’s brought on
most of their elite players to peg back our
A team at half time, the full time score was
46-21 in our favour. The B team also won a
very close fought game; with a final score of
27-22, there was only one try in it at the end.
Overall, I thought this was a great rugby
tour not only because of our success on the
field but also because of the social activities.
A big thanks to Mr Mikdadi for organising the
trip and to Mr Faiers and Mr Hay for making
it unforgettable and for coping with the
adversity of the trip. They handled the
various challenges we threw at them,
including three lost passports, vomiting
and a few bits of lost equipment, very well.
We are all looking forward to our next tour,
by which time the staff will, hopefully, have
recovered from this one.