St Paul’s Sports Roundup, 26 March 2026

We have reached the end of a busy sporting term, and below is the final sports report. It has been an active week for basketball, cross country, fencing, fives and football.

Basketball

Staff vs Leavers Match, 24 March

This year’s edition of the Staff vs Leavers match was one to remember as the students were keen to avenge their defeat from last year and brought reinforcements with a 15 player roster. In comparison, the staff team had only six players but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in terms of determination and experience. The students started strong connecting on 4 three pointers to take a 12 point lead but the staff resilience was evident as they fought back to trail by 4 points at half time. With the early impetus negated, the staff dug deep to take the lead and with 5 minutes remaining it was anyone’s game. However, the constant rotation from the students began to pay dividends as fatigue became a factor. The final score was 41 – 33 to the students but the staff scored a moral victory.

Cross Country

Haskell Cup, 18 March

The competition hosted by RGS Guildford, saw 42 teams competing on a 2km undulating loop on Merrow Downs near Guildford last week. The SPS A team of Leau Roch, Edmund Ashworth-Jones, Charlie Nicolson and Alfred Chen came 7th in an aggregate time of 26min 28sec  and the B team of Jake Barrington, Arthur Hill, Daniel Rogn and Toby Halsall came 24th in an aggregate 33min 33sec.

Fencing

Public Schools Fencing Competition, 17 – 18 March

There were some notable results from SPS competitors at the event at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre:

• Seven Guo (Fifth Form) placed joint 3^rd out of 125 entrants in the Junior Épée.
• Matt Xiao (Sixth Form) placed 6^th out of 125 entrants in the Junior Épée.
• Maximilian Bueno Cargill and Titan Mai (both Fourth Form) placed 12^th and 17^th respectively out of 126 entrants in the Mount-Hayes Foil.
• Maxcel Murillo Sandoval and Harry West (both Lower Eighth) placed 13^th and 14^th respectively out of 77 entrants in the Senior Foil.

Fives

National U15 Eton Fives Tournament at Repton, 16 March

SPS competed at the Eton Fives tournament for the first time; the SPS pairs trained out of school for the event as matches are played on a different type of court from those at home.  All four pairs improved over the day, and had some impressively close games against some of the very experienced top seeds.

Club Fixture (H), 18 March

The SPS senior VI, Freddie Hammond Giles, Josh Ferro, Tom Ritchie, Elyas Efthimiou, Nadim Cortas and Zen Okada achieved an impressive win against a highly experienced adult Executioners Club side – with Freddie beating the player currently ranked 6 in the country at singles.

Christ’s Hospital, 21 March

The mixed second/third team of Harper Katz, Jun Howard, Orpheus Graham Maw, Jamin Agostino, Leo Bauer and Zaid Hariss beat Christ’s Hospital, with Orpheus and Leo winning several games by large margins.

Football

There was a very successful conclusion to the season over the weekend with League titles awarded to the 1st XI, 2nd XI, U16B, and U15B teams.

Harrow Block Fixture, 18 March

The U15 teams produced a mixed but competitive set of results. While the U15A side endured a tough 1-8 defeat, both the U15B and U15C teams earned 1-1 draws and this was enough to ensure that the U15B secured the league title with a positive goal difference. The standout performance came from the U15D delivering an emphatic 9-1 victory.

Harrow Block Fixture, 21 March

The 1st XI were involved in a tightly contested away match, finishing 2-2, a result that crowned them league champions and winners of the Charles Alcock Cup. The 2nd XI produced a composed 2-0 win, also securing them the top spot as league champions. The 3rd XI impressed with a 5-2 victory and there were dominant displays from the 4th XI, who won 5-1, and the 5th XI, who produced an emphatic 7-1 win.

The U16A turned their game around to win 3-1, having trailed 1-0 early in the game, whilst the U16B produced an entertaining 7-3 victory, a result that also secured them the league title. The U16C won 6-1 and the U16D edged a close and competitive game 4-3 having trailed 3 down against very physical opponents.

The U14 sides completed an excellent clean sweep. The U14A won 2-0; the U14B fought for a 3-2 victory; the U14C triumphed 6-4 and the U14D rounded off the day with a 1-0 win.

Rugby Sevens

Rosslyn Park National School Sevens

The SPS Rugby Sevens Teams have made the Rugby Club so proud over the last four days at the Rosslyn Park National School Sevens, the largest Rugby Tournament in the World with over 800 schools and 9,500 boys and girls taking part! Huge congratulations to both the U14 and U16 age groups who made it all the way to the Quarter-Finals and Final of their respective competitions and to the U18’s who were sadly beaten by a strong academy side in the group stage.

Sadly, the Under 14 boys were knocked out in the Quarter-Finals of the U14 Boys Cup by a resilient Cheltenham College team in a game that was played in very difficult conditions but our boys never gave up and can be very proud of what they achieved to make it to the final eight out of 240 teams.

As for the U16 boys, they have been nothing short of outstanding as they made it all the way through to the Colts Cup Final where they met Millfield School in a repeat of the U14’s final two years ago. Unfortunately, Millfield proved to be the stronger side on the day and ran out winners by 26-7. However, with over 270 teams competing in the Colts Cup, arguably the hardest of all the RPNS 7s tournaments to win, we could not be more proud of what our boys have achieved over the two days by knocking out some of the top rugby schools in the country on the way to the final.