Our Year 11 Rugby team went down in an absorbing contest 22-14 away at Bishop's tonight.

Despite the loss, the boys should be proud of themselves, as they have come a long way from a team that had previously found performances like this hard to come by.  The first half saw Bishops take a narrow one try to nil lead within the first 5 minutes, which they held till half time.

In the second half Bishops went 10-0 up with a second unconverted try, but our St Mary's Year 11 boys have become a real 'band of brothers', and showed great spirit in coming back with two tries of their own, one from prop forward, Coburn K who crashed over from close range, and the other from inside centre, Harley S, who evaded a number of would-be Bishops tacklers to go in for a try near the posts.  Both tries were converted by scrum half, Oli E, to put St Mary's 14-10 up going into the final 15 minutes of the game.

We perhaps lacked the experience to 'game manage' effectively by simply keeping the ball and playing in the right areas of the park, and even though we had chances to extend our lead, we ended up conceding two late tries against the run of play to go down 22-14.  Naturally the boys will be a little disappointed, but all things considered this was an extremely encouraging performance.

Ned E and Ewan B made their Rugby debuts; Ben B led by example in every aspect of the game; and full back, Jake D was 'Man of the Match' for his outstanding tackling and running in broken play.