Third Year Blog

Welcome to this bumper edition of the Third Year blog….

First a message from our Heads of Year:

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get this into last week’s blog, however, Mr Woods and Miss Millar would like to give a special mention to those boys who performed in last week’s New Boys’ Concert held in the Hammond Theatre. This is always an enjoyable occasion where a range of musical talents and genres are on show, but more importantly it gives the School’s new musicians an opportunity to perform in the Hammond Theatre, many of whom were doing so for the first time and we hope this was the first of many successful stage appearances they will make here. The following boys performed and all did exceptionally well:

 Matthew Lowe (Saxophone), Thomas Cross (Viola), Jake Amor (Piano), Ravi Franzini (Electric Guitar), Oscar Leonov (Singing), Kishan Bouri (Drums), Nathan Cook (Saxophone), Rupert Reddish (Singing), Sathin Wijasena (Singing) and Rohith Ratnam (Electric Keyboard).

 We hope the boys enjoyed performing and are proud of their debut appearances!

 News from around the forms:

Alfie Onslow (3E) has been asked to join the National Junior Chess Squad to play in a tournament in Paris from Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th March…. Check (you out) mate!

 Fedor Ivanov (3B) has finally reached his first 5 merits, and we are all impressed that two came from physics. Well done Fedor!

Will McLoughlin and Alex McMillan (3D) went to England v Argentina at Twickenham last Saturday. Everyone switched their phones’ torches on, which made for a very cool atmosphere.

Joseph Dorma (3A) and Theo Bailey (3A) also went to see the England v Argentina rugby match at the weekend and had a fantastic time.

3D won the inter-form volleyball on Thursday lunchtime and are confident that they are on course to win the whole thing.

3B are delighted to report they came 9th out of 9 in the inter-form volleyball, although not the success we dreamed of, but we bonded as a team over our adversity…. We congratulate the other teams, and hope they also recognise 3B’s good humour in defeat!

Charlie Close (3A) went out sailing and competed in his club championships.

And apparently… Will McLoughlin (3D) packed Aaron Rodgers on Madden 17…

Sport News:

In Rowing, the Third Year boys had their first opportunity to experience a race; sadly, they weren’t racing as they’re still learning how to row, however, they did a brilliant job helping out at the Hampton Small Boats Head held on a chilly day back on 19 November. The rowing coach reports that he was incredibly pleased with the efforts they made helping the many competitors and supporters that had turned up to one of the biggest junior races in the country, hosted by Hampton. The boys are looking forward to the next Hampton Head race on 4 February, optimistically praying for better weather; this time for bigger boats, this will be a great opportunity for the boys to race on their home stretch of water.

Conor Turpin-Clifford snapped up an exciting opportunity this year, agreeing to cox in the J16 (Fifth Year) squad. After joining the boys on their October training camp to Temple-Sur-Lot, Conor had the opportunity to cox a senior VIII last weekend, which he said was great fun (despite the sub-zero temperatures on the river!), but slightly scary as they’re so much faster than the J16s. Mr Woods, one of the J16 coaches, wasn’t too offended by Conor’s remarks, but the J16s will certainly be training harder as a result! Conor is looking forward to his first coxing race this weekend, where he will be coxing a J16 VIII at the Wallingford Fours and Eights Head; hopefully he’s been studying the course map thoroughly as it’s an interesting course to steer at race pace! Good luck, Conor!

Match report U14A football:

On Saturday we played a Wilsons side we had lost to before. We went into the match expecting a tough fixture and that is what we got. With Declan Connolly (3C) missing, Shahryar Rezvani (3F) became captain and performed well in Declan’s absence. Our first goal was a good cross, finished at the back post by Theo Radicopoulos (3C). The next goal was slightly fortunate as an Alasdair Bolling (3J) shot resulted in a deflection which ended up being an own goal. The third goal was a header by Theo Radicopoulos (3C) from an Alasdair Bolling (3J) corner, which had a fortunate bounce to take it past the keeper. The next goal was for Wilsons after a period of sustained pressure. Alasdair then restored the 3-goal lead with a good finish. Wilsons however ensured a tense finish after their shot went in after having hit the post. Overall it was a solid 4-2 victory against a very good Wilsons side who we had lost to many times in the past.

Written by Maxi Grindley (3C)

Match Report U14A Rugby

Hampton vs St Benedict’s- Middlesex Cup Final

We gave this match 110%, each and every one of us. As we ran out onto Allianz park we all thought we could win this. After an encouraging and tactical talk from our coach, Mr Kothakota, we left Hampton and headed towards Allianz Park, buzzing with excitement. As we neared the venue, the nerves started to kick in and ‘game heads’ were on. There wasn’t any messing about, this was the real deal, we even had a professional changing room, all to ourselves.

We had a warm up behind the stadium and everyone started to realise this was going to be a very challenging match. Under the floodlights we ran out onto the huge pitch and huddled up. Wise words from our captain, Alex Taylor, and we were ready to go. A beautifully executed kick from Jamie Benson put Bennies under immense pressure and quickly the ball was turned over. Our intensity was at the max and special mentions to Henry Van-Spall and Thomas Tomlin for making some deadly running lines and try-saving tackles. Jack Slaney also never failing us, both in keeping our spirits high and hitting the rucks with some immense power. At the scrums we have to give credit to Matt LeMoign for being a monster of a number eight and relieving us from pressure when it was needed. Lucas Mangham put in some great tackles and turned the ball over throughout the match, without forgetting to secure the ball for the nine to dig up and whip it out to the backs. We were on the move again pushing into their 22 metre line and a well-placed grubber was kicked through their line of defence and we had two chasers on the wing. Thomas Netterfield’s pace was very useful in this match and he put pressure on their wingers: in this instance he chased the ball down easily; disappointingly, however, their fly half picked the ball up and shot through a hole in our defence and the first try of the match was scored.

Kick off again, as Jamie, brilliant as always, sent the ball right back into their left corner. Our immense rucking skills, led by Toby Robinson, who won the ball back time and time again, gave us the opportunity to attack out wide a well-executed run of our move ‘Irish’ and the ball was out wide. Some hard line runners, including Johnny Powell who made a great dummy line, which lined up Thomas Tomlin to dive over the try line and score. 7-5.

A kick from the touchline is usually only made by professionals, which I think is why ours was converted to take the score to 7-7. The referee blew for half time and Mr Kothakota took us into another huddle and we all knew that this was our match. We had completely dominated the first half; tackles had been made, the lines had been run and the balls had been caught. We had to carry on like this.

We received the ball this time and a brilliant take from Alex Taylor led to a dangerous attack out wide. The ball unluckily got turned over and it was a scrum to them. They span it wide and two crunching tackles made by both Tim Lamming and Dylan Straker-Grimes gave us time to realign and recover from the counter attack. Suddenly they had a man break through at speed which gave them another try. The morale kept up by our team gave us a surge of energy and the mentality of ‘this is our game’ kicked back in. We made it down into their half putting pressure onto their whole team. We broke out to the left and attacked ferociously spinning it wide to Joe Sykes who made a break, supported by our fullback Ben Martis-Jones. This attack left lots of open space out to the right and St Benedict’s exploited that, scoring their third try. That was how the game finished.

We didn’t give up and as a player, I am proud to be a part of this brilliant side. A huge thank you to Mr Kothakota for training us up for this match and for being there, supporting us all the way through; it was an unforgettable experience to be able to play at Allianz Park.

We gave the match our all and that’s what matters; we may have lost but we didn’t lose our spirit. We kept it our heads held high and we are looking forward to the remained of the season.

Written by Luke Greenall 3D