Weekly Sports Report

St Paul’s enjoyed a strong week of sport with cross country victories at Richmond, including an Inter team win and several Middlesex qualifiers. Freddie Hammond Giles and Josh Ferro claimed the Winchester Fives title while younger players impressed on debut. In rackets, the Juniors delivered determined performances with notable wins for the U15 pair. The First XV capped the week with a superb 23–21 comeback victory at Tonbridge.

Cross-Country

Richmond Schools Competition – 21 November

St Paul’s enjoyed an excellent outing at the Richmond Schools Cross Country, with the Inter team (Y10/11) crowned overall winners. The Paulines produced a superb set of performances, finishing with a combined score of just 22 across the first four runners.

Charlie Nicolson dominated the field to take 1st place, supported by strong finishes from Alfred Chen (6th), Leau Roch (7th), Shunsei Kwan (8th) and Cyrus Sheikh (10th).

In the Juniors (Y8/9), Surya Kansagra (SPJ) secured an impressive 2nd place.

With the top seven in each race qualifying for the Middlesex Schools Championship, congratulations go to the four SPS qualifiers.

Fives

Winchester Doubles Tournament – 21 November

Freddie Hammond Giles and Josh Ferro won the first schools tournament of the season last weekend, continuing their two year unbeaten run against school opposition. Six Paulines took part in the tournament. Winchester fives involves a modified court with a small kink in the left wall which creates a forward facing buttress, which requires players to sprint forward to retrieve shots which hit the buttress.  Freddie and Josh cruised to victory in the final, with some impressive hard hitting and sharp retrieving, and the accuracy to hit unreturnable shots to the base of the buttress. Nadim Cortas and Zen Okada reached the semi-finals (beaten by Freddie and Josh).  For Fifth Formers Joey Hammond Giles and Thomas Outred, this was their first ever taste of Winchester doubles and despite playing against pairs mostly three years senior to them, they contested every point and improved considerably during the day.

Rackets

SPS v Clifton College – 21 November

The Junior Rackets squad produced a spirited series of performances against Clifton College at home.

A standout match saw the SPS U16 3rd Pair, Joe Burch and Haofei Du, push Clifton’s 2nd Senior Pair all the way, narrowly losing 2–3 after a superb five-game battle.

The U15 Pair of Santi Rio and Arjun Arora claimed a notable 3–0 victory over Clifton’s U16 team, while the U15 (C) pairing of Aryan Kohli and Leo Bauer fought hard but fell 0–3 to Clifton’s top U15 side.

Rugby

SPS v Tonbridge Block Fixture – 22 November

The First XV travelled to Tonbridge determined to overturn their narrow defeat earlier in the season — a challenging task given how few SPS sides have won away there.

After battling through difficult conditions to reach half-time trailing 0–14, a composed SPS team rallied superbly. Two second-half tries brought the score to 14–14, and a surge of belief carried them through to a dramatic 23–21 victory.

The U16A and U14A teams also extended their unbeaten runs with wins of 22–12 and 15–14 respectively. The U15A side were unlucky to fall just short in a 21–19 defeat.

Although several other teams — including the 2nd XV, U16B, U15B/C and U14B–G — finished second best, the fixtures were tightly contested across the board. With three A-team matches decided by three points or fewer, the block was a showcase of determination and high-quality schoolboy rugby. Winning three of the four A-team fixtures, with the fourth lost by only two points, reflects the squad’s depth and competitiveness across the year groups.