First-class rugby experience

QE’s young rugby players enjoyed the opportunity to play at the newly opened Allianz Park in Mill Hill – home to the mighty Saracens.

The refurbishment of the stadium was only completed in February, when Saracens defeated Exeter Chiefs 31–11 in an Aviva Premiership match before a capacity crowd of 10,000.

QE’s U15A XV, comprising boys from Year 10, played against Trinity School from Croydon – the first such fixture. “It was a wonderful experience for the boys,” said Jonathan Hart, Head of PE. “The facilities are first-class and the playing surface allowed our boys to perform well, showing some fantastic adventure in attack and commitment in the tackle.”

“The team was captained and led extremely well by Nabil Haque, and there were some notable performances from Neroshan Mariabalanayagam, Sabesan Thayaparan, Obi Ojji and Jeremy Simanjuntak”, he added.

The stadium is equipped not only with the latest in synthetic turf, but a state-of-the-art LED scoreboard. During Premiership matches fans can keep track of statistics and look at replays on their mobile devices by logging on to the wifi and downloading the ground's ‘app’.

“Although we went down 22-0 to a very physical and skilful side, the score by no means reflects the balance of the game or QE’s rugby,” said Mr Hart. “Our boys were very unfortunate not to score and after the game the Trinity School coach suggested that we should look at making it a regular fixture.”

QE is hoping to be able to play further games at Allianz Park this season.