The head of rugby at Plymouth College has hailed his side’s performance of their RFU Continental Tyres Schools U15 Bowl quarter-final. Richard Edwards has confirmed their reward for beating Poole Grammar School 36-0 in the last 16 is a trip to face West Sussex’s Worth School.

He said: “They’ve risen to the challenge without a doubt. They’re really energised by the whole experience and realised their two games away from a final.

“They don’t want to look too far ahead, but they’re prepared to work hard, there’s a good training ethic and desire to learn and improve. So the questions will be there as and when the sessions come along and they’ll be looking to problem-solve as well.

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“We like to play expansively and use our width. We’ve got a back line that is functioning pretty well ball in hand, but we also pay quite a bit of attention to our defence.

“We have a strength and conditioning programme so they’ll have two or three gym-based sessions in a week, then a game session on Tuesday and two after-school sessions, so we train pretty consistently through the season. We won’t be ramping it up because we don’t want to overload them.”

The RFU Continental Tyres Bowl is foundational to age-grade rugby in England, enabling students from across the country to compete against one another and against some of the best the game has to offer at schoolboy level.

The team will be doing the 230-mile, five hour coach journey on Tuesday morning ahead of the afternoon kick-off.

Richards said: “We’re going to head off in the morning because of the number of away games we’ve had from being at the bottom of the draw. Any travel over two hours is never an advantage.

"We have previous with this, because we did the same to play Emmanuel last year at the same stage when we went up in mini-buses and the boys struggled. We’re looking to get as much rest time in on the journey, break it up, make sure we’re not pressured for time when we get to the other end, so we can get the travel out of our legs, that’s the plan.

“We’ll probably stop a couple of times en-route. The coach driver will need to have a 45 minute break at some point anyway, so that will work.

“But it will be an early start, we’ll make sure to keep rested on the bus and get a decent sized coach so they’ve got space to spread out and they’re not cramped in a mini-bus.”

The Continental Tyres Schools Cup is an important part of the age-grade rugby landscape in England, with schools’ rugby often where players fall in love with the game for the first time. For more information visit the Continental Tyres Schools Cup section of the England Rugby Website