Whitefriars School have never payed rugby before but 10 weeks ago they brought a group of year 9 boys along to start to play and learn the sport. Coached by Harrow players Tm Beech and Henry Jesson in their capacity as coaches for Club Excel, we gradually got the boys to start learning the basics.

The big objective was to play Salvatorian College in a game at the end of the project and the match took place last week at the club.

The Whitefriars boys took some time to get into the game but their first ever try scored lifted them and they went on and scored 2 more to lead at half time 15-10.

Salvatorians took the lead in the second half to 15-25 but the Whitefriars boys kept going and managed the last score to make it 20-25.

Playing as a team and learning a new sport away from the school has had a big effect on the boys. Their teacher reports that their behaviour at school has improved and they talk about rugby all the time. It's been such a positive experience for the school we are already talking about doing more with them next term as well as with Year 7.

Salvatorians have now challenged Whitefriars to a Year 7 match in late February so we've got another team to build. We also welcomed one of the boys to the club on Sunday as he's so keen to play more.

If our club is about anything, it's to promote our sport in the local community and this has been a brilliant project which has achieved that beyond expectation!