Scottish district, school and club sides meet in Merchiston Castle School U18 Rugby Festival

Two Scottish district teams will take part in the Merchiston Castle School U18 Rugby Festival this weekend.

Glasgow Caledonia Reds and Edinburgh Reivers will play in the 16-team festival, which will also include Merchiston School, Ayr RFC, Dollar Academy, Peebles RFC and Boroughmuir RFC.

The regional teams are made up of FOSROC Academy players who were not already featuring for other Scottish sides in the festival.

Nine English School sides will make the journey north to make up four groups with four teams each, giving the Scottish sides opponents they have never faced before.

This is the fourth time the festival has taken place, and the first time it has featured Scottish regional academy sides.

On Saturday, each team will play the other three teams in their group once, in games of 12-minute halves. The top two from each group will progress to the Trophy quarter finals on Sunday, with the 3^rd and 4^th placed teams advancing to the Bowl competition.

The teams will all compete in ten-minute half games on Sunday to determine 1^st-16^th places in the festival.

Fixtures on both days begin at 10am.

Head of Pathways John Fletcher said: “This is an excellent opportunity for our young players to test themselves against different oppositions and ways of playing.

“The shortened games mean that decision-making is paramount and exposing them to environments like this is great for the development of their skillsets.

“Tournaments like these are great to supplement the work that we are doing in the pathway and we always welcome opportunities for players to compete against other players from Scotland and further afield.

“We’re really looking forward to what should be an excellent weekend of rugby.”

Merchiston Castle School’s Director of Rugby Roddy Deans said: “We are very excited about this weekend. It’s the first time ever that Scottish schools, districts and clubs have competed against each other and also against strong English teams.

“It’s an awesome opportunity for our young Scottish players.”

For more information on the festival, click HERE.

To see the Glasgow Caledonian Reds U18 squad, click HERE.
To see the Edinburgh Reivers U18 squad, click HERE.