At the end of the Cargilfield 7s, we headed off in the minibus down to Newcastle. The journey down to Newcastle was made a lot easier by listening to the England Australia game on the radio – lots of cheers, especially from Archie at the end of the game. Once we got to the hotel, we checked in and immediately set off to the pool for a swim, followed by a meal in the hotel restaurant before bed time.

On Sunday morning, having enjoyed a fabulous breakfast and then we spent some time on Long Sands beach on Sunday morning before heading to Kingston Park for our fixture with Aysgarth School. Even though we only managed a short game of touch rugby during the half time in the Premiership Cup match between Newcastle Falcons and Doncaster Knights, we enjoyed a thrilling experience at the stadium with the boys taking part in a pitch parade as well as being Guards of Honour.

Back at the hotel after the rugby match, the boys took another go at drowning Archie in the hotel swimming pool, then we went out for supper at a local pizza restaurant.

The next morning, after a decent lie in, the boys were tired but excited for their last game on tour. We got to Newcastle Prep School midmorning, in time for their break, which the boys joined in for. Once changed, Hugo played his bagpipes before we got underway with the rugby.

It was a very exciting game from the outset with both teams playing with passion and aggression. We played three 15 minute thirds and NPS opened the scoring with a strong run through the middle. We replied with some flowing rugby, rucking hard and moving to free the ball along the line. Tommy was a powerhouse in the ruck, winning his team ball after ball. Daniel ran with

determination and Nick made a lot of attacking runs.

At 2-1 after the first third, we felt confident we could pull ahead. But in the second third, NPS came bravely back at us with some clever ball-stealing from the attacking runner, leading to two tries. In SRU rules, players can’t target the ball but in England they can and it took us a while to adjust to this. Again, the boys dug deep tackling well and forcing their way back into the game to end 3- 3 with a final 15 minutes to play.

The boys came roaring out for the final thrid and played some excellent, determined rugby. Magnus and Hugo were noticeable for their tackling and rucking, and Archer made some super dancing runs down the left wing. Harry

broke through a good few tackles to win his team a lot of ground, and Arran scored two further tries by cleverly diving low and hard to get over the line underneath the defending NPS players. Benji made some great runs, almost scoring from close range, Raffi had his best game of the season so far with some excellent handling and showing a far better understanding of the game, and Ezra and Ensay made some great contributions.