The famous St. Joseph's College National Schools Rugby Festival gets underway tomorrow, and the hosts' coach Rowland Winter has high hopes that his school will soon be a force on the field, in addition to putting together the massive annual event.
Only 16 of the very best rugby schools get the privilege of attending the competition, though many more are queuing up on a huge waiting list to move into the event at some point in the future.
Among the champions of the last decade have been Wellington and Brighton Colleges, Millfield School and RGS Newcastle, all who are back here once again to compete for what has become one of the biggest prizes in schools rugby.
“It's been referred to previously as the ‘Kingmaker' of schoolboy festivals by national papers,” Winter said. “3,500 people will be there each day, around 7,000-8,000 over the weekend and last year when it was streamed online 100,000 watched it overall, so it's a pretty big event.”
In keeping with a new format brought in for the tournament for last year's event, there will be four pieces of silverware up for grabs, with every team playing for a ranking from 1-16.
Those who qualify in the top two of their four-team groups go on to compete for the cup, and those that lose the semi-finals compete for the plate, while the same format takes place for those failing to qualify, who go into the bowl, and if they lose their semi, the shield.
It has also historically been an event from which some of the best current and former English rugby talent has emerged. Players of the tournament include Andy Goode (1997), Jonathan Joseph (2008), Lewis Ludlam (2013), Zach Mercer (2014) and Marcus Smith (2016).
Ludlam was part of the last St. Joseph's team to win the tournament back in 2013, and though they reached the Plate Final in 2016, have struggled to make an impact on the tournament since.
But Winter carries huge experience, having guided Cambridge RFC to the 2015-16 National 2 South title and Coventry to the 2017-18 National 1 title before taking them to a highest ever finish (8th) for a newly promoted team in 2018-19, and an impressive fourth-placed finish in the 2019-20 season, halted by the Coronavirus Pandemic.
He believes in the investment coming in will make a huge difference to the team, as they aim to dine at school rugby's top table once again.
He added: “We want to climb up the ladder and move up towards being in the top group of schools over the next few years, and to do that the college is investing heavily into the resources and support that the rugby programme is getting.
“That includes increased delivery time, so we're now running a programme that would rival any Premiership academy or Championship rugby club in terms of access time to on pitch training, to strength and conditioning that's required, the analysis software and provision, and the detail in terms of the number of professional coaches and staff.
“It will lead to us producing more and more talent and hopefully running the best rugby programme in the UK in the next three years.”
And Winter sees a lot of parallels at St. Joseph's to jobs he has done before with senior rugby clubs, hinting at his famous long-term redevelopment project at Cambridge, that worked so successfully, as being a similar task to this one.
“For me it's a new challenge but actually pretty similar to the challenges and projects I've taken on before, in terms of re-building, growing and evolving a programme.
“Whether that's at club rugby in the National Leagues and winning National 2 or National 1 or pushing Coventry to the top of the Championship, it's no different.
“We've got an excited group of people who are well resourced and some fantastic support from the college itself
“So it's do-able, it will take a bit of time but we're definitely heading in the right direction.”
Rowland Winter was speaking to Steve Jackson, reporter for The Rugby Paper, you can watch a live stream of the tournament from Saturday morning here with coverage provided by Next Gen XV.
Teams at the 2022 tournament:
Group 1 – Denstone College, Dulwich College, Hurstpierpoint College, Wellington College
Group 2 – Kirkham Grammar, Marlborough College, Trinity, Whitchurch High
Group 3 – Millfield, QEGS Wakefield, RGS Newcastle, Strathallan
Group 4 – Brighton College, Hampton, RGS High Wycombe, St Joseph's College
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