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A Test player-stacked Hartpury College Production Line XV

Hartpury old boys Ellis Genge and Jonny May (Photo by Steve Bardens/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

Championship club Hartpury College have gradually established themselves as one of the leading producers of talent in England, with former players littered across today’s Gallagher Premiership and Guinness PRO14 tournaments.

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The list of players that have come through Hartpury’s ranks seems to grow larger and more impressive with every season, so here is a Production Line XV of former players:

1. ELLIS GENGE
The England loosehead was captain of Hartpury College before joining Bristol in 2013 at the age of 18.

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Ex-Hartpury graduate Harry Randall talks to RugbyPass about his size, Radradra’s wheels and more…

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Ex-Hartpury graduate Harry Randall talks to RugbyPass about his size, Radradra’s wheels and more…

2. AMY COKAYNE
The Harlequins hooker studied her A-Levels at Hartpury shortly before earning her first England cap in 2015 at the age of 18.

3. NICKY THOMAS
Ospreys’ tighthead signed for Gloucester after attending Hartpury. It was followed by a stint with both the Scarlets and Bristol before he rejoined Ospreys last summer.

Bath
Elliott Stooke square up to Morgan Parra in December 2019 (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

4. JONNY HILL
An England debutant in the autumn, he moved to Hartpury at the age of 17 before joining Gloucester and later Exeter.

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5. ELLIOTT STOOKE
Bath’s second row was one of many players that made the leap from Hartpury to playing professionally for Gloucester earlier in his career.

6. ROSS MORIARTY
The British and Irish Lions, Wales and Dragons back row was loaned to Hartpury during the early days of his Gloucester career.

7. SEB NEGRI
A member of the Italian back row with links to Gloucestershire, he came to the college after leaving the Western Province academy in South Africa.

8. JAKE POLLEDRI
Like compatriot Negri, the Gloucester favourite also helped the College earn promotion to the Championship in 2017.

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9. DAN ROBSON
The England and Wasps half-back is part of a long list of many scrum-halves to have played for Hartpury, which includes Callum Braley, Stephen Varney and Harry Randall.

10. BILLY BURNS
Ireland’s recently capped fly-half was a student from 2010 to 2012, playing alongside Moriarty, Stooke, Genge, Hill, Braley and Lewis Ludlow in the U18s junior academy. We could have easily gone for Scotland’s Adam Hastings here but as he played but didn’t study at Hartpury, we have given the nod to Burns.

11. JONNY MAY
A mainstay in the England squad now, he joined Gloucester after attending Hartpury College. He also did a part-time university course while playing for the Cherry and Whites.

12. MERAB SHARIKADZE
Georgia’s captain moved to England in 2011 to play for Hartpury before moving to France in 2013 where he is now an Aurillac mainstay.

McConnochie scores
Ruaridh McConnochie scores England’s fifth 2019 RWC try against USA in Kobe (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

13. RUARIDH MCCONNOCHIE
The Bath and England speedster was selected for England 7s while playing for Hartpury and won a silver medal for Britain at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

14. ALEX CUTHBERT
The Lions, Wales and Exeter winger played alongside May at Hartpury before his club and Test career took off.

15. LOUIS REES-ZAMMIT
The 19-year-old Wales and Gloucester sensation is one of the latest players to have come from the Hartpury production line.

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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