Rugby Union

Year 7 have made a great start to rugby at MCS. In September, the team came second at a District tournament – Harry Jenkins and Rhys Phillips were standout performers, scoring many of the team's tries.

Despite a narrow defeat against John Kyrle, the team displayed terrific effort and enthusiasm against a bigger, more physical team and were rewarded for their performances with a convincing win against Ebbw Fawr in their next match. Robert Williams, Liam Martin and Josh Bicknell all making significant contributions to the team performance in these matches.

Year 8's Rugby Club has been very busy this term with an average of 26 Year 8s turning up every week.

With regards to fixtures the Year 8 team were unbeaten in the first tournament held at Llantarnam beating three very strong schools – Fairwater, Croesyceiliog and the hosts Llantarnam.

They then went through to the next round of the competition held at West Monmouth School where an understrength team faced some strong opposition in the form of Gwynllyw, Llantarnam, and the hosts West Monmouth.

The boys stood up to, and embraced, the challenge, winning all but one of their three games by a good points margin and just coming up short by an unconverted try to the hosts West Monmouth in a game that showed grit and determination by all the boys concerned.

Over half-term, nine of the squad attended a skills hub that was run by the WRU and the Newport Gwent Dragons as a form of talent identification.

All the boys really enjoyed the experience and gained valuable feedback from the range of coaches who were present. Those boys who were lucky enough to be selected from this skills hub have the opportunity to represent their area in the Dewar Shield; which is a national tournament contested from teams all around Wales.

The Year 9 Rugby team have made a good start to the year with comprehensive victories in five of their six matches in the group stages of the Welsh School Cup.

The team managed to score a total of 214 points in their six matches so far this year and conceded only 49 points.

Nathan Brooks has accounted for 70 of the points himself; scoring 14 tries in six games and Ellis Brown (Year 8), Paris Thomas, Louis McFarlane, Daniel Whistance, Alan Hawkins and Jack Thomas have also put in number of exceptional performances.

The team couldn't manage to maintain their 100 per cent record against Abersychan (who remain the only team to have beaten this MCS team in a competitive match in three years), losing 21-7.

However, the five previous bonus point wins were enough to see MCS through to the next stage of the competition.

The Year 11s started their Welsh Cup campaign with some fine performances. They recorded a 40-34 win over Croesyceiliog and an 83-12 win over Llantarnam.

With a lack of player availability, their winning streak came to an end when they lost 26-40 to West Mon and 50-0 to Abersychan.

They face Gwynllyw in their last remaining fixture and will be hoping other results go their way in order for them to qualify for the knock out stages of the cup.

MCS captain Lloyd Phillips also received the captaincy for the Newport Gwent Dragons Under 16s this season. This is a great achievement for Lloyd and we wish him the very best of luck for the rest of the season.

The First XV rugby team have made an outstanding start to the season. In the League they sit top of the table after recording convincing victories over St. Josephs with a 51 points to 5 victory and demolished King Henry VIII with a 53 points to nil victory.

In the Welsh Cup they have so far recorded two wins out of two. In the preliminary round MCS recorded a 12-3 victory over Stanwell School.

In Round 1, MCS recorded a 'walkover' after St Cyres called the game off an hour before kick-off due to lack of players.

For information on the rugby league, see page 25 in this week's Beacon (5th December).