St John’s Rugby team triumph again in the College League

The St John’s men’s rugby team have won this year’s College League First Division, following on from the success of last year’s double winning season.

The final game of the season saw the Red Boys win the league with an impressive 34-0 victory over Gonville & Caius.

Despite an unpromising start due to the team missing a number of key players and a loss of 24-19 to Selwyn-Peterhouse, the team went on to win every subsequent league game in the season. New faces such as fresher Charlie Smith and MPhil student Lt Col Andy Geary performed impressively on debut, and George Bilclough stepped up to lead from the front in both attack and defence when the team was still struggling to find its best form.

After a dominant win against Jesus (33-8) and hard-fought wins against Emmanuel (20-6) and Downing (20-5), a scrappy match was played against Gonville & Caius which resulted in a convincing win (38-5). This was followed by the return fixture with Selwyn (28-5).

A tense away match against Jesus came next, in which the team spent large periods of the game playing from behind. Centres Jack Claydon and Joe Sharpe put in a commanding performance in defence, while Chris Brook and Tom Zhang were consistently disruptive at the breakdown. A late penalty was enough to seal an 8-6 victory.

The new year saw the squad bolstered by the return of a number of players from involvement in various Varsity Matches, with successive wins against Emmanuel (65-0), Downing (41-0) and finally Gonville & Caius (34-0).

SJCRUFC would like to thank their sponsors Elixirr for their continued support.

The team is now awaiting the Cuppers Competition, in which St John’s are the defending champions.