Sports News

Cross Country

Congratulations to all our runners in the Middlesex Schools Championships last week.  All had to qualify as a result of their strong performances in the Richmond Schools event last term and, with Middlesex taking teams of eight in each category to the National Schools Championships on Saturday 15 March at Ardingly in West Sussex, there was a lot to race for!  This year we had what must have been one of the strongest-ever St Paul’s teams, with nine qualifying runners across the Junior Boys (Fourth Form), Intermediate Boys (Fifth and Sixth Form) and Senior Boys (Eighth Form) categories. We were up against the best from nine London Boroughs, but nonetheless won two out of the three races entered. The full SPS Results are as follows:

Junior Boys: Charlie Nicolson (1st), Shunsei Kwan (7th), Joachim Strabo (9th), Cyrus Sheikh (11th)

Intermediate Boys: Leau Roch (7th), Alfred Chen (18th) [NB both racing a year up]

Senior Boys: Benjy Street (1st), Cam McConnon (19th), Chris Garagnon (22nd)

Names in Bold are guaranteed or highly likely to have qualified for the Nationals event. This means that we will probably have at least four SPS runners competing in the Nationals, with likely dropouts from others meaning we may get at least one more for Joachim Strabo who’s in 9th position in Junior Boys. This includes at least one in each age category: an outstanding outcome.

Football

ISFA U18 Shield 6 February 

The SPS 1st XI made history by becoming the first team to make an ISFA national final. They beat Cranleigh School 7-2 in the Semi-Final and will face either Haileybury or Bromsgrove in the Final on 25 March.

SPS V St Benedict’s and the OPAFC, Saturday 8 February

The weather once again proved problematic, but the U16A team hosting St Benedict’s U16 were determined to be ruthless in front of goal and came away as 10-0 winners.

The afternoon was organised chaos, with 50 OPs coming to the school for some staggered kick offs making up 4 x 45 minute matches of varying ability against teams selected from the Upper Eighth. There were some highly competitive and entertaining games with a mixed bag of results for the SPS Upper Eighth teams – SPS won 1, drew 1 and lost 2 – all matches were played with tremendous spirit and determination!

Rackets

SPS Vs Winchester College (h) Thursday 6 February

1^st Pair: A. Zimmerman / H. Dattani… lost 0/3 (14/17, 3/15, 9/15)

U-16s: A. Dhar / E. Traissac… WON 2/0 (15/3, 15/8)

U-15(a) V. Sharma / R. Ahmad…. lost 1-2 (15/3, 9/15, 10/15)

U-15(b) J. Burch / H. Du…. WON 2/0 (15/11, 15/10)

Rugby

U16 Eton College Sevens Warm-Up Games

The U16 Sevens team squad got their season up and running with a four-team tournament at Eton College (Wellington College, Marlborough College, Eton College and SPS). Played in the bright sunshine, the boys gave a good account of themselves, defending brilliantly and getting better on attack as the day progressed. It wasn’t a day for medals but rather a day to shore-up fitness, with eyes firmly on the prize of being competitive at the Rosslyn Park National Sevens Tournament in March. Final results: lost 2, drew 1 and won 1.