The Rugby Against Hunger tournament in Toulouse
By Collin Osbourne June 20 2008
Over the last few years Quinssa have supported the academy by first offering bursaries and latterly by funding the exchange programme which we ran with the Natal Sharks Academy. Each year we sent two schoolboys whom we believed would benefit from the exposure to another rugby environment to train in South Africa for 3 weeks and we reciprocated by hosting two of their academy scholars.
Over the last few years Quinssa have supported the academy by first offering bursaries and latterly by funding the exchange programme which we ran with the Natal Sharks Academy. Each year we sent two schoolboys whom we believed would benefit from the exposure to another rugby environment to train in South Africa for 3 weeks and we reciprocated by hosting two of their academy scholars.
Previous recipients were TomSargeant, Seb Stegmann, Chris York, Sam Smith and George Robson. However thisyear it was felt that the money raised could be spread further by using it to prepare our U17 squad for theRugby Against Hunger tournament in Toulouse.
This was the second year of thetournament after Harlequins hosted the inaugural competition last year. TheFrench charity, Action Against Hunger, approached Harlequins for support and wewere happy to be involved. 8 teams in 2 pools of 4 competed in a round robinformat and then each team played against the team of the same rank in the otherpool to finish with a ranking from 1 to 8.
This year, our pool containedPerpignan, Toulon and Leicester while the other pool had Toulouse, Saracens,Castre and Stade Francais. There were some very closely contested games andsome very ‘interesting’ refereeing which all made for an extremely competitiveday of rugby. After, somehow, contriving to loose to Perpignan, 5pts-7pts inour opening game Quins defeated Toulon 10pts-7pts and then went down againstTigers 5pts -10pts in the last pool game, victory in which would have ensured aplace in the final. We then met Stade Francais in the play off and proved to bemuch too classy for them, winning by 21-0.
Quinssa’s support for the academyprocess at Harlequins is absolutely fantastic and we believe that once againthis opportunity has allowed us to clarify and confirm our thoughts on who thenext crop of young men are that will follow the path of the likes of MikeBrown, Jordan Turner-hall, Tom Guest, Ugo Monye, Tom Williams, etc into our first team and beyond. Weare extremely grateful for all the effort that Quinssa puts in to fund raisingto support us and the success of the academy process here at Harlequins owes much to yourcontribution.
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StumbleuponRe: The Rugby Against Hunger tournament in Toulouse
Posted by: Babs (IP Logged)
Date: 2008:06:20:09:29:07
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to do us a write-up, Collin.
A bit more cash added to the kitty at the Quinssa AGM last night.
All we need to do now is get the A games (thank God they're continuing) played at The Stoop.
Proud to be sponsoring George Robson, Seb Jewell and half of Alex Rogers (forget top half v bottom half, we've decided to do a rota!) in 2008/9
Keep supporting our academy boys, Quins' future!
A bit more cash added to the kitty at the Quinssa AGM last night.
All we need to do now is get the A games (thank God they're continuing) played at The Stoop.
Proud to be sponsoring George Robson, Seb Jewell and half of Alex Rogers (forget top half v bottom half, we've decided to do a rota!) in 2008/9
Keep supporting our academy boys, Quins' future!
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