Warwick takes Middle School title over Dellwood

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9: Warwick Academy brought home its third championship of the afternoon when it won the Middle School Title against Dellwood 3 to 1.

It was a good contest with a lot of free flowing rugby and after Dellwood put a try on the board in the first half, Warwick came roaring back with two of their own.

Warwick dominated the second half as they lifted the Championship.

Coach Chris Stafford said: “I’m just really impressed by the commitment our boys have shown. They stuck to their game plan and they played some very physical teams today. A lot of our players are a lot smaller than them so in order to compete we have had to play some very good rugby.”

He said the team’s game plan was “to play good attacking rugby. We wanted to defend together as a team and we managed to do that and that helped us today.

Physical

“We played Dellwood before Easter and it was a very, very physical game and we let our heads drop. Going into this game we had that in the back of our minds we thought they would have beaten us. So the first five minutes we were a bit worried, but we stuck in and started playing some rugby, that’s when we came out on top.”

Shannon Botelho, Warwick captain, said it felt good to come away with the Championship.

Botelho said: “The team kept its composure. We didn’t get out of line and we came at them hard.”

Botelho credits Stafford for helping them keep focused after the Dellwood try by brushing it off and go hard at them again.

“We used our heads and avoided their strongest players and ran through their gaps.”