Mount are on the climb again under Campbell

Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby’s great schools

THE influence of the big rugby playing Catholic schools in England has been considerable over the years – Ampleforth, Stonyhurst, St Brendan’s Bristol, St Benedict’s Ealing, Saint Anselm’s, Belmont Abbey, Douai, Downside – and to that list must be added the Jesuit College of Mount St Mary’s Spinkhill in Sheffield.

A small educational establishment by most criteria, they have punched well above their weight on their rugby field since the 1980s when Geoff Wappett – later to achieve even greater glories with Bradford GS and England Schools – put the foundations in place while Ged Glyn and Paul Scott carried on the good work and achieved great things during the school’s halcyon days from the late 1980s to the 90s and early noughties.

Thereafter Mount, with their fearsome fixture list, endured the occasional tough season but there have been strong campaigns as well, while in recent years the arrival of South African coach Dylan Campbell has added fresh impetus.

It was under Glynn that the school achieved their most marked success with two appearances in the Daily Mail Cup Final including a victory over RGS Newcastle in 1994 and two appearances in the Rosslyn Park Sevens Open final. Mount won the Open title in 1988 beating Millfield 12-6 in the final and went close again two years later when they pushed a Neath College side packed with Welsh school internationals very close before losing 12-8.

“Geoff Wappett had set up a great Rugby programme before he moved to Bradford GS and we had a very supportive headmaster, Father Ryan who was a little bit quirky but keen for the school to excel in all sorts of directions,” recalls Glynn. “He was a Jesuit Priest and had inherited a con-siderable sum which had to be put into a trust fund and could only be spent on educational projects. As such he was very happy to largely underwrite ‘educational’ rugby tours to New Zealand, Australia and all sorts of other venues which helped us develop as a side enormously. I should add he also started a falconry club and a citizens band radio club and all sorts of other extra curricular activities. Like I say a bit outside of the box.

Halcyon days: Daily Mail Cup winners in 1994

“He wasn’t a rugby man as such but took to the view that if a thing was worth doing it was worth doing well. He gave me licence to offer a few rugby scholarships and initially I concentrated on my home patch of St Helen’s where, after the closure of West Park school, there was a bit of a gaping hole for Catholic families looking to place their sons at rugby-minded Catholic schools. If they had some rugby ability, we were able to offer a few places at the Mount. “So that’s how we picked up Neil Ryan who was a fine schoolboy and England U21 fly-half.

Meanwhile Martin Dawson was a very talented wing and he arrived from QEGS Wakefield where he had starred against us although we didn’t talent scout him. His dad was appointed as our bursar and Martin arrived with the family and went on to win England Schools honours with us.

“Our reputation grew and other players came. Peter McCarthy was a very solid centre and; another England schools cap, Charlie Harrison, was a talented, busy scrum-half who had a very decent senior career with Bedford, Rotherham and Bath.

Meanwhile Matt McCarthy was a talented Welsh fly-half who won a Blue at Cambridge and played for Orrell and Neath before he did a knee. He also played for Wales A.

“There were some great moments along the way. In 1992 we reached the Daily Mail final but finished second best to Bradford GS, losing 30-12, but two years later we went all the way and won the final 17-13. Our win at Rosslyn Park came in the 50th anniversary of the tournament and there was extra publicity around the event and we did really well in 1990 before losing to Neath. Overall we punched well above our weight.

“In terms of big occasions at the school the grudge matches against the other big Catholic schools Stonyhurst and Ampleforth were the major annual events with bragging rights at stake and all the priests and parents were totally engaged, but in pure rugby terms the matches with Bradford GS during this era were definitely the pinnacle. Very high quality indeed.

“Firstly Bradford were the dominant team in the country and secondly there was the school’s connection with Geoff who was a great coach to pit your wits against. In the 1989-90 season we were unbeaten in the regular season and that included a draw at Bradford which frankly felt just as good as a win.”

Talent: Scrum-half Charlie Harrison, playing here for Bath in 1997, starred in 1994 Cup win

There were other feathers in Mount’s cap during this period. Three times – 90, 91 and 93 – they won their own prestigious Sevens tournament which was an important staging post for many schools en route to Rosslyn Park while there was an undefeated tour of Australia in 1992 and a visit to New Zealand where they represented England in the World Schools championship.

They still featured at the sharp end of the Daily Mail Cup with three quarter-final appearances and in 2001-02 – another exceptional season in which they won 18 of their 21 games – they embarked on an unbeaten tour of South Africa. That was the year when there were high hopes of reaching Twickenham again but they slipped to defeat against Leicester GS in Round Five and the following year they again seemed to have the potential to go all the way but this time lost 13-12 to King Edward’s Birmingham in Round Six.

More recently the teams between 2011-2013 were vintage outfits with the First XV going unbeaten in regular season games in 2012-13, coming very strongly off a tour of Canada which helped hone the side.

There was something of a dip after that but Mount moved to breathe fresh energy back into the rugby programme a few years back when they hired South African coach Dylan Campbell.“We are building again in recent years although there are still challenges,” says Campbell.

“We are still a very small school in terms of numbers with perhaps 25 senior players so we don’t field a Second XV, our two showpiece teams are the Firsts and U16. So strength in depth is obviously a potential issue when we get injuries or illness.

“We are aiming for rugby excellence though and have a number of rugby scholars and our reputation as a nursery is growing again and our fixture list is becoming stronger again. We also have a good working relationship with the Doncaster club. “We’ve enjoyed a couple of strong seasons recently – unbeaten in regular season games in 2018-19 when we got to the quarter-finals at Rosslyn park and we were again strong the following season before Covid with a narrow defeat against an exceptional Warwick team thwarting our efforts in the National Cup.

“That was a particularly young team so it was a shame not to see them get one final bite of the cherry last season but it was confirmation that our rugby programme is heading in the right direction.”