Chellaston School benefit from school- club link

Chellaston Foundation School and Technology College are benefiting from establishing links with their local rugby club, Melbourne.

 

Chellaston, on the southern outskirts of Derby, formed an official club-school link with Melbourne four years ago and converted a former caretaker's bungalow at the school into a clubhouse to form a base for the rugby club's mini and junior section.

 

The result has been a surge in interest in rugby at the school which has helped Chellaston reach the third round of the Daily Mail Under-15 Schools Cup in their first season in the competition.

 

"Four years ago we had about 70 kids playing rugby at the school, now we've got 265," said Simon Ord, Chellaston's master-in-charge of rugby.

 

"I'm also head coach of Melbourne's mini and junior section so the club has become almost an extension of the school. When the kids go home on Friday we say; 'see you on Sunday' and they are back here again.

 

"The decision to forge a link with Chellaston has been a great success. We now have Alan Royer, the Rugby Development Officer for Derbyshire, based at the school and rugby has gone from strength to strength."

 

Last season Chellaston won the Midlands Under-14 State Schools Cup at Worcester, a success that persuaded Ord, a former Derby scrum-half, to enter the Daily Mail competition.

 

Chellaston have already defeated two more-established rugby-playing schools in Loughborough GS and Derby Independent GS to reach the third round and now have a home tie against Northampton School for Boys on October 17.

 

"We beat Northampton in the final last season, albeit by a narrow margin, so it will be a tough game for us," Ord said.

"Having done well in the Midlands State Schools Cup I thought that we would enter the Daily Mail to pit ourselves against some of the big boys in the region and we've had a good start."

 

Nine members of the Chellaston side played county schools rugby for Derbyshire last year, four went on to lay for Notts, Lincs & Derbyshire and three - scrum-half Oliver Page, wing Marcus Roome and back-row forward Jacob Albon - are members of the Leicester Tigers Elite Player Development Centre.