Manchester Rugby Tour - Langley Park U14's

During the half term holidays, Langley Park School for Boys U14's travelled to the North West for a 4 night tour with Tours 4 Sport.  With our local knowledge of Manchester, they had a fantastic itinerary, which included friendly fixtures for their A and B teams, Sale Sharks Coaching, Premiership Rugby, paintballing and more....


Manchester is one of our most popular UK sports tour destinations, particularly for rugby where we have good links with local clubs. The group left early from South East London on the Friday and arrived at St Ambrose College in Altrincham with time to stretch the legs and prepare for their first tour fixture. Both A and B games proved to be close encounters with Langley Park winning the A fixture and losing the B game.  St Ambrose, despite having a few boys away on holidays, were great hosts and offered a test of the London school.  

Following the game, the group made their way to their excellent 3 star hotel located in a pleasant village in the South of Manchester.  The hotel is fantastic, our sports groups always give excellent feedback and enjoy their stay. There is free wifi, a good pub and restaurant on-site, high quality en-suite rooms with satellite TV, and outstanding leisure facilities including a pool. Travelling up from London and playing in their first fixtures made for a long day so Friday evening was used to relax and we organised food at the hotel for them. 


Saturday morning started with an excellent breakfast to give the boys fuel for the day ahead. This morning we had organised a 2 hour coaching session at Didsbury Toc H RFC with Sale Sharks academy coaches.  It was a beautiful morning and they arrived at the club bright and early where they were met by myself and two of the coaches from Sale Sharks.  Dan the Head Coach had requested minimal contact so the focus was on handling and decision making which helped them sharpen up for their next fixtures on the Sunday.  As part of the package, the boys received Sale Sharks memorabilia to take away with them. After heading back to the hotel for freshen up, the players managed to have some time to relax at the hotel after their coaching session, using the pool, sauna and steam room. 


We had organised an afternoon at a local rugby club for the group which we use for our pre season training camps.  It has excellent facilities including a 9-hole pitch and putt golf course, 4G rugby pitch, 3G 5-aside pitch and a well equipped club house.  Half the group enjoyed some golf while some preferred to watch Burnage 1st XV play Wilmslow 1st XV, a local derby and a also played on the new 4G pitch which was a novelty. A good afternoon was had by all and further fun was organised in the evening with ten-pin bowling at a local entertainment centre 5 minutes from the hotel. 


Sunday was another early start with a 9 am departure for the second a final fixtures of the tour at Lymm RFC in Cheshire. Both A and B teams played against Lymm A and B in competitive games with the A side losing 26-7 and the B's winning. Lymm were great hosts and Langley Park were keen to reciprocate and offer them a return fixture in the future.  See the match report below courtesy of Lymm RFC coach Steve Downes: 


Another great morning of rugby at Beechwood. Lymm hosted touring team Langley Park school for boys from Bromley who brought 37 lads to play our 1st and 2nd teams.The A team game was an excellent match with the visitors showing some great defence to keep a dominant Lymm away from the whitewash in the first half, before their very classy 8 broke away and scored against the run of play. The try was converted for the visitors to go into half time ahead 7 - 0. At the start of the second half, Alex Mansfield-Hickman marked his return to the first time with one of his trademark chase and poach tries. it was like he'd never been away! Lymm's back row then began to run the game and Johnstone, Diamond and McGrail were the standout players for the rest of the game. They not only delivered quality ball for the backs which centre Harris scored a fine try from, they also rampaged for Johnstone and McGrail to score themselves. 10 Dixon had his kicking boots on today converting 3 of the 4 tries from distance. Much credit must go to the visitors who contributed and battled for every minute of the match.

In the second team match, Lymm were joined by their friends from Stockport to pit a Barbarians team against the visitors. What a feast of attacking rugby this was! In the first half the visitors were well on top going into half time 4 tries to 1 in the lead. But the arrival of a couple of subs livened The Barbarians up in the second half to pull the game back, just narrowly failing to pull off an amazing come back, in the end losing 5 tries to 6. Everyone enjoyed this game.

Thanks to the visitors for their fine rugby and sporting attitude - excellent guests.


After post match food and drink it was on to Headingley in Leeds. Unfortunately Sale Sharks were not playing at home over the weekend but we had organised tickets for the group to see Leeds Carnegie v London Wasps in the Aviva Premiership. Wasps edged the game 17-8 in a close game. Sunday evening was spent relaxing at the hotel after a good day of rugby. 


Langley Park spent their last day enjoying Paintballing at a venue not far away in Cheshire. We had booked out the venue for the day where they had exclusive use of the site and by all accounts were trigger happy using over 10,000 paintballs! Some of the coaches had the bruises to show for it. 


The group departed on Tuesday morning having had an excellent 5 days away in the North West.  Tours 4 wish the school the best of luck for the remainder of the season and hope to be able to work with them again next year.   


Manchester is one of our preferred sports tour destinations where we can add that little something extra with excellent sports facilities, accommodation and local fixture opportunities. 


Contact us on info@tours4.com or 0800 043 3887 for full details.