Emerging talent Niang to skipper U19 side

St Edwards School, Oxford lock Alex Niang is set to skipper the Academy U19’s in tomorrows fixture against Birmingham Moseley at Old Merchant Taylors.

On announcing an exciting young squad Academy Director John Lacey said “We are really pleased to name Alex Niang as skipper of tomorrows side, he has been training and playing with both the Academy U18 and Senior Academy sides when he’s back from boarding school. He has shown a great mix of power, aggression and skill in his games with us and we think he has both athletic potential and leadership qualities that we hope to develop over the coming years.

We have all been working together as a squad this week with the U17 and U18 players joining the Senior Academy programme for the week. There have been some pleasing performances from the lads. It will be interesting to see how they go against older players, but we plan with these step ups in mind and are confident we will cope well.

The squad includes many of our Emerging Player Group members and these guys have been concentrating on skills and physical development for just these opportunities.

We’re expecting a tough game against Moseley and will have to be at the top of our game to come away with performance to be proud of.”

With a full house expected at Vallis Way, we have rearranged the venue to the impressive set up at Merchant Taylors School, we have played there on a couple of previous occasions and enjoyed those experiences immensely.

Kick off is at 14:00 and if anyone can’t make the 1st XV game against London Irish, we’d love to see you on the touch line cheering the boys on.