Monmouth and Sir Thomas Rich schools

Tennis - Written by Mitchell Gerrie.

The boys and staff had a well deserved sleep-in today as we finish off the last few days of the tour. Unfortunately, Jamie twinged his neck, sitting him out for today’s matches.

Windy conditions made serving virtually impossible and rallies limited to a minimum. The first few games were underway but an unexpected shower poured down, soaking both players and the hard courts.

After a rain delay break play began back with Jackson and Jack cruising to a 6-1 doubles win, Filling in for Jamie, Cooper Swinney finished 3-0 up and myself finishing 5-3 up.

Another heavy shower caused all matches to end with the courts unplayable. Having finished the boys walked to Tesco for some tasty sandwiches after sleeping in too long, missing breakfast.

2nds Cricket report - Written by Hamish McQueen.

2nds arrive at Sir Thomas Rich’s to a picturesque ground.

Archie Hodgson in his second game as captain won the toss and elected to bat sending
makeshift opening pair Archie Rochford and Aidan Perry in.

Perry got the scoring off to a quick start with a 4 of his pads before skying one in the air to pit us down 1 early, a solid partnership between hamish macqueen and Archie steadied the innings only to be halted by one of several lengthy rain delay This was followed by rapid innings from dos (20) and bez (34) the innings was further bolstered by solid knocks by Hodgo (32) and Sean rose (20*)
Saints after a late flurry of wickets Saints finished on 178/8 after the rain reduced 35 overs

After another lengthy rain delay we were back on the field with Harry Last and Sean Rose tacking 3 early wickets it was a hard next 10 overs with the next two batsmen reaching 50 however some tidy bowling from cooper swinney and frosty brought the match back down to the last 5 overs were we were preparing for a thriller and some late game Bez heroics almost saw us through however with 4 overs to spare they chased it down winning by 4 wickets

It was a solid effort from the boys considering illness fatigue and conditions however despite this we still put up our best performance to date despite the result.

Game 7 v Monmouth by Tim Blank.

After a great day exploring the beautiful city of Cardiff, Game 7 saw the boys playing just across the border in picturesque Monmouth, South Wales.

A 45 minute drive through the vast hills saw us arrive at Monmouth College which bears a close resemblance to Hogwarts!

Down the road from the school grounds was about 20 hectares of sporting fields including the number 1 cricket oval and Pavillion.

For once we had more than 20 minutes to warm up, but it didn’t seem to help as our batters really struggled to get going on the tricky pitch.

It was great to see Harry and Zac open up the innings together. They looked comfortable for the first 10 overs or so and managed to get us to 41 before Zac (14) got a good one that nipped away and took off stump.

Harry (20) was then the first of 4 LBW victims to the same umpire who seemed hell bent on exacting revenge on us Aussies for Alex Carey’s very clever piece of cricket to get rid of Bairstow on the previous day.

A longish rain delay then interrupted JD and Preston and after the resumption we were never able to get going with wickets falling steadily.

Ollie was the best of our batters with a nicely made 24 (LBW), but nobody else managed double figures and we were all out for 101.

After lunch the boys were keen to put in a good performance with the ball but despite our best efforts, the Monmouth batters played the conditions superbly and ran out easy victors (2/102 off 30 overs).

Best of our bowlers were Tommy (8 overs 1/22) and Lukey Burgess (4 overs 0/5).

Play of the day: the superb sit down lunch provided by the Monmouth lads!