Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96porTugal rugby Tour We were all pumped to be going to Portugal. It was the first school rugby tour that we had gone abroad for. The boys were all ready to represent English Rugby, and show the Portuguese what we can do. There is a video of the whole tour on the school’s website. The link is https://vimeo. com/156236265. We left extremely late at night, almost at 12:00, and there was still a good 7 hours until the flight. When we arrived in Portugal, there was a tour guide named Francisco who came to meet us. The ‘Amazonia Jamor Hotel’ was quite nice. It was two per room, with en suite bathrooms and a television (which looked like it was from the 20th century). There was also a gym, a football pitch, vending machines, a games room and two swimming pools! On the first day, we went out to lunch, and we all found an amazing chicken restaurant. But then we learnt the word that all of us (somehow) remembered. ‘Frango’. It translates to chicken. Then the rain kicked in. Heavier rain than in England, and it didn’t stop. Then we came back, and had our first training session. Training was on an all-weather pitch, which was new to most of us, but the pitches were very well kept and maintained. It rained and hailed, but it was just as we were about to finish, so training ended anyway. Dinner on that evening was in the hotel, and it was very nice. The next day, we had training and our first match. Training was fine; it rained for a bit and then we went back to the hotel once training was over. Then the pre-match build up began. We got our heads into the right mental state, and we went to the pitch. It was an all-weather pitch, and then they arrived. The opponents were called Agromania. The U14s won 45-19, and the U15s won 66-0. The U15s played against a mixed U15s and 16s team, and because of the way that the Portuguese ages work, some of the opposition were two years older than the youngest of our players. This was a great achievement for all of us. The third day involved surfing and a ‘treetop adventure course’. The surfing was very fun, and the adventure course was tricky. For dinner we all went our separate ways and found food. A lot of us went to a pizza restaurant where it took 2 hours to get our food. It was fine because we were watching a Champions League match on TV. On the fourth day we went on a walking tour of Lisbon led by Francisco. Then there was shopping in the Lisbon shopping centre. Then we went to the Estádio da Luz (the SL Benfica stadium), and went on a tour. We went into all the main areas of the stadium, such as the dressing room, the pressroom, and even pitch side. The stadium was very dirty because there was a Champions League match against Zenit St. Petersburg the day before. Then it was time to play our final match. We wanted to end the tour on a high against Tecnico RFC. This time, the match was on grass and it was raining heavily, which made the pitch very muddy. Unfortunately, the U14s lost 17-5 and the U15s lost 27-10 against mixed U15s and U16s. We had dinner at the clubhouse and received many gifts from the opposition rugby club. The next morning, we woke up very early, and got to the airport. Francisco had a nice surprise when he got a rugby ball that we all chipped in for. We said goodbye to him and set off for England. We had a safe flight back, and arrived at Heathrow. The line to get back into England was very long; we had to wait for a while. Eventually, we got back to the school to be greeted by our parents after a great tour. We would all like to give special thanks to the staff because without them none of this would be possible. I advise anyone who gets the chance to go on tour in any sport to take it, because it was one of the best experiences of my life at King Henry VIII School. Kelechi Apakama, Year 10 sTaff: mr honey mr parker mr super mr anson o’Connell Tour parTiCipanTs u15 Kelechi Apakama, Josh Aspinall, Sam Bayliss, Jamie Durrant, Ollie Graham, Ajay Khela, James MacLean, Alex Miller, James Miller, Rahul Nayyar, Saul Redgrave, Jai Rihal, Will Stoker (C), Will Walker, Billy Walton, Ross Warwood, Harry Westcott, Tom Woolley Tour parTiCipanTs u14 Gurjeevan Aujla, Matt Bailey, Toby Barham, Jon Borkan, Declan Cutler, Sam Duckers, Deepinder Dyal (C), George Edwards, George Gawthorpe, Alex Goodwin, James Grogan-Hall, Stephen Hickingbotham, Tom Honey, Will Kelly, Ollie Kenyon, Austin Mitchell-King, Henry Monnington, Sam Steven-Clynes, Kai Wayne-Wynne 26 | The CovenTrian