A Rugby year in review

Wind, rain and a pebble strewn Goring Gap greeted the rugby academy students of 2008-2009 in September's pre season week. It was a slog of epic proportions leading to equal quantities of sweat, swearing and spewing, welcome to the newbies and welcome back to the returning players from the colleges most successful season ever.
Where would the road take us in the coming 9 months? My guess would be a jorney of gargantuan proportions, turning boys to men, losers to winners, tryers to try scorers, quiters to hitters, underdogs to overachievers, sporting pretenders to rugby players. Yeap I thought we'd be in for a good one, turns out I wasnt far wrong.....
A squad assembled keen to play a game they thought they knew, how little was understood at this stage has long since been forgotten the players that have emerged from the those dark early days no longer reside here, not in my dojo. So a steady start gradulally built up in momentum and with wins against St Bedes, Portsmouth GS and Sevenoaks in the first half of the season Worthing College was turning into the little engine that could, but would it when it came to the business end of the season? It was clear that a solid bunch of players were punching their weight at this stage and it was not a performance bump restricted to the 1stXV the 2ndXV were going win for win with the 1stXV and as Christmas came around were sitting at the top of the grade.
A fovourable draw in the Daily Mail had helped propell the college further than ever in the competition falling short on the day to a physical and tallented John Fisher side who were knocked out in the semi final on penalty kicks.
I'm going to throw this out there, you can throw it right back if you want but we overachieved in this competition in relation to the last couple of years and that is okay by me.
The other U18 KO competition was the County Cup in which we managed to progress to the final having beaten some tough opposition. The final was played on the substantial Ben Coulson pitch at Worthing RFC this suited the open style of play Worthing thrive on and this was never more evident than when Bobby C-S crossed for the first try. The game thereafter was never in doubt and the Worth Captain at the end said ' Worthing deserved to win they were better' fair comment as all that watched would agree.
On the same day the 2ndXV dominated a Steyning side that was looking to challenge Worthing dominance in the local area. Although Steyning were understrength they put up a valiant effort but the superior organisation of the longer standing programme shone through. Steyning are a programme to watch in my opinion in the coming seasons.
So to the colleges competitions and a heartbreaking loss in the semi final of the national cup left some in tears, some wondering what if Matt Keen had had that extra Burger? Would that have got the ball down? In the end, again, realistically overachieving. But there are lots of U19s returning so this year there can be no excuses a real chance to progress in the tournament next season, I shall reserve judgement until the returning students complete preseason week, its going to be a hot one.
So what of the future how will the rugby gods spread their welath this coming year? Well if I were to make a prediction at this stage it would be this, we will be competitive in all competitions, I believe it is up to the returning students to help guide the newbies and make sure the momentum continues to grow year on year. Who knows this time next year I may be completing this blog from Toronto Canada on Worthing College Rugby Academy's first overseas tour.
So as Kipling said 'fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run' we shall see if you 'become a man my son.' Enjoy the summer, see you in August.