Holders dumped out of Cup

William Blair landed a last-minute penalty to dump holders Oakham out of the Daily Mail U18 Cup yesterday and send Wyggeston & QE College into the last 32 for the first time.

The fly half, one of several Leicester Tigers academy players in the visiting team, kept his head in atrocious conditions to claim a 14-13 win, built on a superb performance from his pack.

'Despite the narrow scoreline, they deserved it,' admitted Oakham's head of sport Charles Welch. 'We have been expecting it really. After winning the cup twice at Twickenham, we were relying on an inexperienced team to do the hat-trick.'

Wyggeston & QE, like Oakham, a prolific supply line of young players to Tigers, now have home advantage over a very similar school in Hartpury College near Gloucester, whose reputation has been steadily on the rise in recent seasons.

Some of the heavyweights also reached the fifth round. John Fisher are still running riot, 66-0 winners at Wimbledon College, Campion trounced Broxbourne 55-0 and Barnard Castle, who took Oakham all the way in last year's final before losing 30-28 set up a tie at Manchester Grammar with their 31-5 defeat of Hymers.

DAILY MAIL U18 CUP - 4th round: Adams GS 0 King's Worcester 10; Oakham 13
Wyggeston & QE College 14; St Bees 5 Lancaster RGS 25; Wimbledon College 0
John Fisher, Purley 66; Trinity, Croydon 9 Epsom College 8; Cooper Co &
Coburn 12 Culford 18; Dowside 16 Bishop Wordsworth 8; Filton College 13 St
Brendan's 10; St Olave's 15 Brighton College 27; Campion, Hornchurch 55
Broxbourne 0; Barnard Castle 31 Hymers 5; RGS Newcastle 0 QEHS Hexham 20.