Many of you will have read C Brown's report on the Easter 2009 rugby tour to Rome. In the Caldicotian there wasn't room to print the whole article, so here it is:

On the 26th of March twenty boys and three teachers joined up to go on a rugby tour to Italy, to see how rugby is played there.

It was a lot warmer in Rome than dull, cold England and soon one of our guides called Georgio welcomed us onto a coach, which took us to the extremely luxurious two-star hotel, the Hotel Luciani, and we were given our rooms. We woke up next morning feeling eager to explore this marvellous city. After some training at the the Capitolina Rugby Club we went to the unpleasant four-star hotel where our parents were staying. Then a tour of Rome:  we saw the Fontana di Trevi (and traditionally we threw coins into the fountain’s water), the Pantheon (the best-preserved building from Roman times) and the Spanish Steps. We all bade farewell to our parents that evening and the teachers reminded us that our first match was on the following day and we needed to get some sleep.

Next morning we were able to visit the Colosseum which really was colossal, and following that we went to see the old Roman Forum which was the marketplace and centre of Roman life. Then we went back to the hotel and we were given our kit for our first match. We were all extremely confident that we would thrash the team, a county team called Lazio S.S. U14. Sadly this wasn’t to happen.

We arrived at the municipal sports club and we caught a glance of our opponents and, as they were 14 year olds, they seemed absolutely massive but we still thought that our skill would win the game, not their size. Unfortunately, they all came at us like raging bulls and it took three of us to take some of them down. Their size proved to be an immense advantage for them and soon they had a healthy lead before half-time. After conceding more tries we finally started to play in their half and we finished off the match with a well-deserved try from Daniel Harriman. Despite the 10-31 loss we held our heads up high because we had played our hearts out and done all we could.

We woke up the next day, the 29th of March, and everyone was feeling groggy. Luckily, that morning we were allowed to go anywhere with our parents, so my family decided to go to the Vatican City which was filled with tourists: the highlight of this visit was getting to hear the Pope say a prayer.

Our last match was at the club where we had trained two days before. Interestingly, we played on artificial grass. The side we played against, Capitolina Rugby Club U14, were smaller than the previous team but they were more skilful. Once more we played our hearts out and managed to squeeze a try against them, eventually losing 7-22. That was the last rugby match in a Caldicott shirt for over half of us, and it was sad to end by losing.

It was a fantastic experience and we learned a lot about Italian culture and how rugby is played over there.

C Brown, author of the above, pausing for a photograph