Scotch College

Scotch Wins Rugby Premiership

The Scotch 1st XV again won the VRU Schoolboys Premiership this season by defeating St Kevins for the second year in a row.

In other rugby news, in March this year Scotch negotiated with Rugby Australia to be considered as a training venue for the Rugby World Cup, to be held in October and November this year. Following meetings with representatives from four countries an agreement was reached for us to host World Cup favourites England, as well as the Canadian team, for their Melbourne pool matches in October. Following on from these discussions, we also agreed to host England in the week leading up to its match against Australia in June this year.

On 16 June, in the middle of our football season, the Meares Oval was given a makeover and became a world class rugby oval (according to the English team management). The arrival of the team for its first training session generated enormous interest amongst the staff and students, much to the consternation of the English coach Team Manager, who had been hoping to train in secret. At the "open session" the following day, a crowd of around 700 watched them go through their drills where they clearly showed that they would be a force to be reckoned with in the up-coming encounter with the Wallabies. Most impressive was five-eighth, Jonny Wilkinson who, put on a display of kicking skills that would make any AFL player envious, trained an extra 1-2 hours after each session, then happily posed for photos and gave autographs.

The first XV Rugby players were permitted to watch the sessions and no doubt benefited from what they saw. English Coach, Clive Woodward, made a special point of thanking the Curator Michael Smith and Grounds Staff for the immaculate state of the facilities and the assistance given throughout their visit. The team is looking forward to renewing acquaintances with us later this year when they will return as World Cup favourites. Unfortunately for security and tactical reasons, most World Cup training sessions will be closed to the public, including the Scotch Community, however there will be a limited number of open sessions where full viewing will be allowed, these will be publicised closer to the event.