The 2016/17 Inverdale Challenge Trophy ended with a try for the Fleet Air Arm but it was the Royal Marines who were victorious, with the scoreboard displaying 30 – 22, successfully defending their title as Inverdale Challenge Trophy winners. As both sides lined up at the start of the match a number of senior caps were clear to see; these two teams represent the pinnacle of Royal Navy regional rugby. However as the match progressed this was a game where the pivotal role played by the Fly Half was clear to see. Caddywould for the ‘Bootnecks’ and Horton for the ‘Wafus’ pulled the strings both in attack and defence.
The Royal Marines caught...
The Royal Navy Women's Rugby season started with a solid performance against Dorchester Ladies RFC; a convincing 46-0 win. The ladies demonstrated a good foundation across the squad with some key individuals putting in very strong performances. The team should take away a lot of positives and continue to build upon them throughout the season. The Royal Navy kick off was cleanly received by Dorchester, who put together some organised attacking phases but were unable to breach the strong defence of the Navy. The pressure on Dorchester soon told with them knocking on which led to the first scrum of the match. This was cleanly won by an experienced Navy pack who didn’t lose a scrum a...
It was a cold, misty evening at Penns Place when the President's XV arrived for their first match of the season to take on Petersfield RFC in a charity fundraiser. Although at times the spectators couldn't see through the fog to make out which side had possession, they were treated to an entertaining match of rugby, enjoyed the excellent hospitality and refreshment organised by Wendy and her Clubhouse team and helped raise £2,200 for the Mayor of Petersfield's charity, Dementia Friends. To top it all, the RNRU President's XV scored 5 tries to win 0 - 27, a great start to the season! Coming together for the first time, Royal Marine Lieutenant Ben Cook led the RNRU Presi...
So let’s agree that the highlight of the RNRU season is the annual Army v Navy Match held at Twickenham. A squad of some forty players is used during the season with only 23 making the match day squad. But how to get there? It is at the community level that the players get noticed and their details are fed up via the Training Support Groups (TSG) to the Director of Rugby and the representative team coaches to have a closer look at. The 1st tier of the route to representative rugby is the Navy Cup, where ships, commando units and establishments battle it out. The second tier is a conglomeration of these teams either based on location (RN North, RN East and RN West) or s...
The HMS Ocean rugby team travelled to Kuwait Scorpions on 6 January looking to keep their unbeaten record on their 'Tour of the Gulf' so far, keen to put down a marker before their forthcoming four games, against well known teams in the Middle Eastern rugby world over the next three months. However, despite a highly competitive and high scoring match, Ocean felt the sting - with the Scorpions ending victorious 31 - 29. All rugby in the Middle East is played under floodlights in order to take advantage of the much cooler temperatures of the night, something the Ocean team has become accustomed to on this deployment however many of the players had to break open their cold weather kit befo...
