YORK St Peter’s School Under-16s rugby union team have been crowned the north of England’s Floodlit Cup champions.

The youngsters came through a tough series of games to beat Manchester Grammar School in the final and bring a major trophy back to the city.

In the competition at Preston Grasshoppers Rugby Union Club, the St Peter’s players encountered the best opposition they had faced all season but continued to improve.

A last-minute conversion in a narrow 7-6 win over RGS Lancaster secured their place in the semi-final where they faced Wilmslow High School – last year’s Daily Mail U15 Cup winners.

With four minutes left, St Peter’s were 17-5 down but they scored two tries to tie the game and, after extra time, went through having outscored their opponents by three tries to two.

In the final, they started the stronger and took an early 10-0 lead. They led 18-8 at the break, following a revival from the Manchester school, but two well-worked tries in the last ten minutes saw the York school come through 32-18.

Seven of the team played their first school rugby game together when they were eight and pupils at St Peter’s junior school, St Olave’s.

“An excellent finish to an outstanding season for the U16s,” was the verdict of Steve Williams, director of sport at St Peter’s.

“The win in this competition was testament to their friendship, team work and team spirit,” added Paddy Stephen, a biology teacher who has been coaching the team throughout the competition.

“They had to win two of the games in overtime with the very last plays of the match, including the win over last year’s DMC champions.

“St Peter’s has no county players in this squad whereas all our opponents had county, North or England players in theirs. The way these boys played brought great credit to the school.”

Squad: Angus Smith, Sam McCullagh, Chris Burn, Frankie Whitaker, Henry Gray, Hugo Aiken, Ben Lightwing, Nick Stephen (captain), Hamish Lynde, Will Booth (vice-captain), Harry Dixon, Charlie Greswold, Calum Craig, Mathew Chan, Henry Scroggs.

Subs: Giles Gray, Max Gill, Toby Simpson, Harrison Medley, Alex Hart, Jack Harrison, Edward Scott.

Injured: Charlie Darmody, Dan Harding.