New Zealand All Blacks Sevens Team Training at SPS

In the week commencing Monday 15 May, St Paul’s School had the pleasure of hosting the All Blacks Sevens World Series Champions whilst they prepared for the London Sevens.

This is the second successive year that the School has hosted the squad and once again the All Blacks Manager, David Ormrod, set aside some time in their hectic schedule for his players to give our SPS U15 Rugby Squad a training masterclass. The All Blacks players divided the SPS Squad into 3 teams and organised a carousel of activities which included a skills session, one on one side-step sessions and a scaled-back touch game. The boys probably spent fifteen or so minutes in each station being given expert advice by some of the world’s best Sevens players. After the carousel session, the boys were given an opportunity to take on the All Blacks in a drop kick competition and then finally the whole of the All Blacks team joined our U15 squad for a game of touch.

“The All Black Sevens team would like to thank St Paul’s for hosting our squad and staff as we prepared for the London 7s last week. We would especially like to thank the ground staff for putting the posts up and marking the lines in cricket season! None of this would have been possible without the help of Andy Maguire and we hope the session with the U15s made all the extra work worthwhile. We would also like to thank the rest of the staff and students for making us feel so welcome when we were on site. Having a quality pitch, pool for recovery and access to the new state-of-the-art gym ensured we had everything we needed to prepare to perform. We wish the school’s rugby teams all the best for their upcoming seven tournaments and hope to be back again in the future”

David Ormrod – All Blacks Sevens Team Manager

We would like to thank David, his staff and his players for giving up some of their valuable preparation time to give our boys the experience of a lifetime to be coached and play alongside the prestigious All Blacks Sevens Team. The players could not have been more gracious or welcoming to the SPS boys and willingly posed for photographs and signed autographs. They epitomise the very best in professional sportsmanship and set a wonderful example for our boys. As Head of Rugby at SPS, I was very proud of the way that our boys conducted themselves both on and off the field during the visit.

On behalf of SPS Rugby Club, I would like to congratulate the team on being crowned World Series Rugby Sevens Champions 2023 and wish them a safe journey home.