U14 Rugby Tour to France
The U14s had a fantastic rugby tour to the South of France during the Easter holidays. Thirty-two boys travelled down to Soustons (near Biarritz) to enjoy everything that the region has to offer.
On the first day, after we arrived, we settled into the accommodation and played a touch tournament amongst the other tour/staff groups before walking into town for dinner at a restaurant named La Pizzetta. Sunday immediately brought one of the trip highlights, as we spent our morning surfing from the beach at Vieux Boucau. Everyone braved both the cold waters and large waves to give it a go. The boys were buzzing after the experience. Hopefully a few boys now might want to try surfing again! We then went to watch Soustons Senior Men’s side play an important league match at the stadium. It was a tense game, finishing in a 9-8 thriller which featured three red cards and three yellow cards…allez Soustons!
The advent of Monday morning then saw us travel to Bayonne for a training session at the Aviron Bayonnais Performance Centre with three of their academy coaches. It was a great session and a good insight as to how the French coach their offloading and free-wheeling style of play! The afternoon was then spent being introduced to Pelota, which the boys engaged well, with before dinner and constitutional kicking games commenced back at the accommodation.
On Tuesday we headed into Biarritz where the weather scuppered our beach plans, so we visited the aquarium instead. The hammerhead shark and sea turtles stole the show. Following some time to explore the city, we headed back for our fixtures with Soustons RFC. Due to French age grade rules, our older (Sept-Dec) boys played their U15s whilst our youngers (January and beyond) played their U14s. Despite the being latter a little one-sided, it was a fantastic example of French rugby as the Soustons U14 team were genuinely outstanding.
The U15s game was also hotly contested, with MTS trailing 34-31 with five minutes remaining. We were then superbly hosted by the home club and headed back to our accommodation for our final tour awards session.
It was a great trip and the boys were a credit to MTS throughout. We look forward to now donning our whites and heading out into the cricket pitch!
