Last Saturday, our young sports men and women gathered in the Dining Hall for our annual Sports Dinner and Awards. The evening was hosted by Head of Sport, Mr Canning, with special guest Graeme West who spoke and presented the awards.
Graeme West is the High Performance Director of Cricket Ireland. He holds the highest attainable cricket coaching qualification (ECB Level 4) and has moved into high-level strategic management. He has coached notable Irish cricketers Andrew Balbirnie and George Dockrell early in their Middlesex careers. He spent twelve highly successful years with Cricket West Indies, establishing himself as one of cricket’s talent pathway specialists, and coached their U19 team to World Cup victory in 2016, defeating the favourites India. He has been with Cricket Ireland since 2024, and his remit and role continue to expand. Graeme talked about what sport has given him over the years. Emphasising the core principles that underpin his approach to coaching, high-performance directing, and fostering independent decision-making as a fundamental element for those he works with and coaches. He discussed respect, appreciation, commitment, organisation, gratitude and how to win and lose. What was striking was how many of those echo our College values and are life lessons in themselves.
We are very grateful to Graeme for giving us his time and sharing the wisdom garnered over a lifetime of sporting involvement.
Awards
Girls’ Hockey Club Person of the Year: Rosengren Charlotta
The Cloister Dash: Boys – David Chukwueke. Girls – Constance Raetsch
Sports Colours
A highlight of the evening is the awarding of “Colours” to pupils who have excelled in every measure on the sports field. Pupils who receive “Colours” have excellent ability and attitude, are committed on and off the playing field, play and practise with consistency, are reliable, resilient and courageous, are leaders or soldiers on their teams, are selfless and put others before themselves. They are true team players. The boys get ties and the girls a necklace and pendant inscribed “SCC in ludo excellentia”.
Twenty “Colours” were awarded to the following pupils for the 2024-2025 academic year:
Athletics: Oran Mann
Girls’ Basketball: AJ Ediale, Safia Walker
Girls’ Cricket: Sophie Pollock, Safia Walker
Boys’ Hockey: David Chukwueke, Roemer Lodewijk
Girls’ Hockey: Tabitha Larke, Frederique Lodewijk, Cecile Mellenthin, Rachel Pollock, Polly Pringle, Sophie Pollock, Safia Walker, Pina Wiesner.
Rugby: David Chukwueke, David Cron, Matthew Houlihan, Oran Mann, Ryan Ovenden,
Sports Persons of the Year
We do not always award this; the reason is that we have a standard, and that standard must be met for it to be awarded. This year, we were fortunate to have a real debate over our Sports Person of the Year, with some outstanding girls in contention including AJ Ediale, Sophie Pollock, Rachel Pollock, Polly Pringle, and Claudia Penwill. All represented the school’s senior teams in at least two of our major traditional sports. In some previous years, any one of these ladies could have singled themselves out. In the end, we decided that Safia Walker, who has played Senior Basketball, Cricket and Hockey for numerous years, is our Girls’ Sportsperson of the Year.
On the Boys’ Front, David Cron represented the College, Leinster and the Irish team at rugby as well as playing Senior Cricket. Ryan Ovenden represented the Leinster U19 Rugby team and is on the National Training team. Finally, David Chukweke played Senior Rugby, Captained Senior Hockey when very few now combine both of our main winter sports and also was .1 of a second away from qualifying for the All-Ireland 100 metre final (without doing any formal sprint training). It was hard to separate the three, so we decided to award it jointly to the two Form VI pupils – Ryan Ovenden and David Chukwueke. The first is a natural athlete who narrowed his focus to rugby, and the other remained a true all-round participant when it is challenging to be. Both have served College Sport consistently and to an excellent standard.
Sports Persons of the Year: Safia Walker, Ryan Ovenden and David Chukwueke
Team of the Year:
Although some Senior Teams performed well this year, we did not feel that any one team singled itself out above all others. So this title is not being awarded this year.
We are greatly, as always, to Rev Owen for this photographic account of a wonderful occasion.
