The senior squad gave coach Alex Carroll a 50th birthday present to remember on Saturday with a double win over at Stamford. The Seconds opened the show with a 45-24 win against the Stamford reserve squad with Kofi Miller and Oli Boyes both getting two tries and Louis Harvey and Stu Campbell one a piece.

The Firsts then took on their Stamford opposite numbers in the Papa John Northern Plate. Stamford took an early lead following a scrum but tries from Garrett Bell and Gareth Shuttleworth put us in front. The tie was clinched either side of half time with two for Logan Deeley and a virtuoso effort from James Dunne to mark his retirement from playing, due to old age. Stamford scored in the final play to make the winning margin 31-21. See John Warner’s report on the website and the video link is below

https://app.veo.co/matches/20230415-1xv-v-leamington-6e179eda/

The win at Stamford has taken us into the quarter finals and fortunately, with potentially several long journeys, including Wigton - near Carlisle (aka Wiggytown) possible in the draw we have got a home match against Market Rayson & Louth. They got through with a 36-24 home win against Stockwood Park . The other quarter finals are Beverley v Aldwinians, West Leeds v Wigton and Widnes v Old Rusworthians. The game kicks off at 3.00.

Our U16 went on tour to Wales over the weekend and ran into some seriously good opposition. On Sunday, they will be playing their Warwickshire Plate final against Harbury at Barkers Butts kicking off at 2.15. We are looking for a good turnout throughout the club to cheer them on. In the morning the U14 are at Shipston, the U13 are at Rugby St Andrews and the U12 are at home to Kenilworth

Also coming up is the club annual dinner on Friday 5 May. For those who haven’t bought their tickets they are priced at £30 and the guest speaker will be Kelly Brown of Saracens and Scotland. Contact Tom Chandler on 07919 101161 or tomchandler@sky.com to book your place and to pay please send a £30 payment to the club account - 16-23-15 11851701 – and mark it club dinner

Phil Marsland’s funeral is at Canley Crematorium, Coventry today (Wednesday 19 April) at 1.45 and afterwards at the club. All welcome.

We have been given the opportunity to provide marshalls for the Two Castles run on Sunday 11 June (0800 – 1100) with each marshal earning £50 for the club for three hours work. If you are willing to help, please email Lucy Ramsbottom at lucy@ramsbottom-events.co.uk

The Committee have agreed to undertake a major upgrading of the clubhouse over the summer period. This will be led and project managed by our Development Officer, Gareth Wilkinson. More information will follow, but in brief -

• We will be improving and extending the lounge by removing pillars, re-flooring and raising the roof and new decoration and memorabilia
• The bar will be pushed back and extended and upgraded and the rooms behind the bar will be reconfigured
• The gents’ toilets will be upgraded to the standard of the female facilities

The main work will commence towards the end of May and is scheduled to take about three weeks to complete. Gareth will be organising contractors as required and he has received promises for a load of time, materials and other support. We will still need club members to help by volunteering their labour and knowledge which will contribute to the buy-in and lower our costs. The project will be funded by a combination of club reserves (up to £35,00) sponsorship, donations and grants – we got a grant towards the toilet improvement by the RFU only last week

There will obviously be some problems to resolve as we plan and progress the project but it is a huge opportunity to improve the clubhouse to make it a better place for members of all sections of the club to enjoy and will it will be much more attractive as a community venture for hire. The lounge will remain open during the work and the marquee will be available, as well as a new outside bar under the arches which will hope will become a permanent feature. Existing bookings and activities will be able to continue. Some preliminary works are already starting ahead of the main push in May

More information, with drawings and photos, will be on the club website, in In-Touch , and in the clubhouse ahead of our main start. If anyone wants to know more at this stage please let me know and I will see what can be done

Fancy a trip to Cardiff or Dublin in the summer. The RFU have announced this week that they have an allocation of tickets for the RWC warm up games against Wales (5 August) and Ireland (19 August) which go on sale to club members direct from 1 am this morning (19 April). If you are interested let me know and I will send to the link from the RFU website – first come first served

johnlizlyons@btopenworld.com