Independent Schools Barbarians

Independent Schools Barbarians

A new Barbarians team was launched by Chris Terry and Roger Uttley of Harrow School in 2006 to expose the talents and expand the opportunities of players from a number of independent rugby playing schools. The idea is to give the boys a platform to play which is above and beyond their school’s 1st XVs.

Said former England international and Harrow School's Roger Uttley OBE, “The Heads of Rugby of a number of independent schools are keen to give above average performers the opportunity to play a higher standard of rugby and develop as players while maintaining the educational ethos of the schools they attend. They feel that a representative game would give players an incentive to achieve something higher than a first XV honour, while providing an additional opportunity for club and representative side coaches to watch them play at a truly competitive level.” - RFU Press Office

The first game was played in beautiful spring sunshine on “The Close” at Rugby School on the 25th March 2007, witnessed by Mickey Steele Bodger, President of The Barbarians, who has given his blessing for the use of the term Barbarians for this venture. Ten schools were involved in this first match and included some famous names. They were Harrow, Eton, Tonbridge School, Radley, Stowe, Oundle, Oakham, Wellington, Rugby School and Uppingham.

The ten schools involved nominated their best players not currently involved in the Academy or representative structure. These players were divided into two non-geographical teams to reflect the Corinthian ideals of the Barbarians, with players from the same school playing against each other. The name ‘Barbarians’ has been used as a means of indicating the sort of rugby that the matches aim to encourage.

The game itself was a wonderful display of champagne rugby, played wide and fast by players obviously delighted to be completely free to fully express their rugby talents. In the end after a close fought game the Light Blues beat the Dark Blues by 30 points to 14.

Further Development

Sunday 16th December 2007 saw the first games of the Independent Schools Barbarians after their expansion to include more schools both from the South of England and for the first time from the North of England. Over 40 Independent Schools nominated their best players not currently involved in the RFU representative system.

Two games were played in the bright sunshine and cold conditions at Oundle School, firstly the South game followed by the North game. Both games were wonderful exhibitions of expansive and elegant rugby. The play flowed from end to end and from side to side in true Barbarians style with the participants given free reign, free from the pressures of victory, to show their rugby talents at their best. Many tries were scored by all four of the sides in two evenly matched contests. Due to the nature of the event it is unimportant who actually won the games but what is important is that it without doubt showed the depth of talent that there is in English rugby which is willing and waiting to be tapped. After the matches at the post match supper the Barbarians management invited 25 of the players to represent the Independent Schools Barbarians against the Irish Exiles U19s at Harrow School on the 6th January 2008 (kick-off 2.15pm). This was a somewhat unpleasant job for the Barbarians management as with such a depth of rugby talent on offer it was difficult to decide between so many excellent rugby players.

First Representative Game

Sunday 6th January 2008 saw the first game for the Independent Schools Barbarians against representative opposition, namely The Irish Exiles U19s. The game was played in bright sunshine on the Sunley Field at Harrow School. The Barbarians team consisted of 24 players invited to play from the 100 boys who played in the North and South Barbarians matches held at Oundle School on the 16th December 2007.

The game was a tough first encounter for the Barbarians against a very strong Exiles side with contained some very good and very physical players, including a number of Ireland U18 caps from last season. The game was played at a tremendous pace on a fine pitch which was perfect for flowing, running rugby. The score line of 39-0 to the Exiles indicates what a fine team they were. The Irish team was powerful, fast and skilful and featured many players that we are sure we will be seeing much more of in future years.

The game was however much more competitive that the score line may suggest.
The level of skill on both sides was excellent and the Barbarians also played some excellent expansive rugby especially in the second half as the Christmas break was slowly purged from the players system and the Barbarians started to gel as a team, even though they had only met and trained together for one hour that morning, coached by two former Barbarians John Olver (Oundle) and Ian Smith (Oakham).

There were two main differences between the sides. Firstly the fact that the Irish players were a year older made quite a difference; they were bigger man for man and more physical at the breakdowns and in the contact situation. This meant that at times the Barbarians were starved of the fast clean possession the backs craved. The second difference was the way in which the Irish players converted their opportunities which was truly superb despite the valiant defence of the Barbarians. They scored 4 or more tries purely due to the fact that they kept the ball alive in the tackle and had the players in support to convert these attacks into points when the Barbarians defence had hoped they had snuffed them out.

As the game progressed the Barbarians did start to win some quality ball due to the determination of the lighter Barbarian’s pack. Tom Lund (Bradford) the Captain was impressive as was his second row partner Marco Cengarle (St. Pauls) who was fast around the park and worked very hard at trying to tame the physicality of the Irish Pack. When the Barbarians gained good quick ball the backs looked fast and dangerous. Both fly-halves that played for the Barbarians Joe Barnett (Uppingham) and Rob Halliday (Ashville) got the backs playing wide and exciting rugby in true Barbarians style. However, the Barbarian attacks were well defended by a quick covering and powerful Irish defence and the Barbarians just failed to get points on the scoreboard on a number of occasions, not least being held up over the line right at the end of the match. Many players could be mentioned in the Barbarians back line but in particular Joe Massarella (Mount St. Marys) at full back and Gareth Stoppani (KCS Wimbledon) were particularly dangerous and elusive with the ball in their hands.

The game was excellently refereed by Rowan Kit allowing both sides to play exciting, heads-up rugby and the Barbarians are most grateful to him for taking time to referee this match (Rowan will have refereed three games in three days)!

All in all this was a great experience for the Barbarians players and very beneficial for them and for the development of this Barbarians venture. It very much showed what a depth of young talent there is in British rugby!

The Barbarians are very grateful for the sponsorship support of 118118, without whom this new venture would not have been possible. Not least they have provided all the kit for the boys and much organisational support for both of the Independent Schools Barbarians days as well as the newly formed Prep Schools Barbarians venture. The Barbarians have even obtained their very own cheer leaders in the form of the two 118118 runners who have been at all our games this year and have brought a totally new dimension to the Barbarians warm ups!

Barbarians Players

1. Henry Brooke, QEGS
2. Luke Fletcher, Barnard Castle
3. Alex Edler, QEGS
4. Tom Lund (Cpt), Bradford
5. Marco Cengarle, St. Pauls
6. George Milligan, St. Peters
7. Will Parker, Sedbergh
8. Richard Leigh, Yarm
9. Alex Crampton Smith, Radley
10. Joe Barnett, Uppingham
11. Gareth Stoppani, KCS
12. Rory Jones, KCS
13. Adam Gadsby, Wellington
14. Henry Spurrier, Oundle
15. Joe Massarella, Mnt St Marys
16. Fergus Austin, Oundle
17. Joshua Taylor, Oundle
18. Adam Murgatroyd, Rugby
19. Tom Ransom, Oundle
20. Rory Weston, Rugby
21. Charlie King, Royal Hospital
22. Graham Baxter, RGS Newcastle
23. Rob Halliday, Ashville
24. Tom Hart, Arnold

Prep Schools Barbarians

Due to the success of this venture and the interest in it from a number of Prep Schools, The Independent Schools Barbarians have now also set-up the Prep School Barbarians in conjunction with Chris Hoy, Director of Sport at St. Piran’s Prep School. This new venture will run on very similar lines to the senior model, aiming to give the boys it involves enjoyment and chance to play at a level beyond school level.

Following on from the success of the Independent Schools Barbarians venture, set up by Chris Terry and Roger Uttley, OBE of Harrow School last year, it was thought that it would be an excellent idea to create a Prep School version of the event. This would foster the same Corinthian principles as the senior model and follow a similar format, but involving boys in the U11 and U13 age groups.

Many Prep School games staff have felt that at present there is no real extension or opportunity for their top rugby players to progress upwards. The Barbarians concept appeared to be an ideal opportunity for the region’s top Prep School rugby players to be given the opportunity to play against boys from other schools selected by their coaches as players having real potential for the future. Many of the players, due to their busy school commitments do not yet play club rugby, and it would also provide an opportunity for the RFU’s CB Schools of Rugby which starts at U13 to identify potential players.

The concept was quite simple. As this was our first year of organising the event we wrote to all the schools on our playing circuit and asked them to put forward 2 players from the U11 age group and three from the U13s.They were then put in to four non-geographical teams (two at each age group) to play two one-off festival games at Harrow School. It was hoped that this would thus provide an amazing opportunity for the boys to really ‘test their metal’ against the other top rugby playing boys in the South East.

The boys arrived on the day they were handed their playing and training kit which they received courtesy of our generous sponsor for the day 118118. They were then taken off by their coaches for a morning training and organisation session, theses coaches included Roger Utley, OBE and Tosh Askew.

The boys then got to play on the 1st XV pitch at Harrow with the U11s playing first followed by the U13s. The standard of play was quite exceptional and all the boys appeared to have a fantastic day where they learnt a great deal and got to play with and against a much wider group of rugby talent than they are used to.

We were very fortunate to have Gregg Davies (ex IRB referee and Headmaster of Shiplake College, Henley) to referee both matches.

After the matches the boys were taken to a post match meal in the dining room at Harrow School where they were all presented with a polo shirt as another memento of the day.

In terms of the future, we have recently found out that our sponsors 118118 have agreed to work with us for next year and are very keen to expand the concept of pushing rugby talent at a grassroots level. We now have in place a Barbarians management team who are looking to recreate the same package as we had at Harrow with schools in the South West (Blundell’s School), Midlands (Rugby School) and the North (Neil Rollins). In time it is hoped that this may lead to inter-divisional games and the selection of a U11 and U13 representative team to represent the Barbarians and perhaps even the undertaking of a short tour.

Schools Involved this year:

Winchester House,
Eagle House,
Gayhurst,
Caldicott,
The Dragon,
St Johns, Beaumont,
St. Johns, Northwood,
Oratory Prep,
The Beacon,
Papplewick,
Aldro,
Davenies,
Moulsford,
St Pirans,
Ridgeway,
Danes Hill,
Chesham Prep.

Sponsor

The Barbarians are sponsored by 118118 the Directory Enquires Service.

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