On Sunday 8th October, players from Bristol Rugby Club, which is currently top of the Guinness Premiership League, visited Castle Cary RFC.

A bright Sunday morning saw the usual crowd of approximately 100 of the Club's Development Squad, aged 4 to 16 but with some very special surprise guests.

Eight of Bristol Rugby's senior squad gave up their Sunday morning, travelling for an hour to help coach the eight age sections, a number of whom had played in the bruising encounter with Gloucester in the EDF Cup the day before.

The training had been arranged directly with Richard Hill (Head Coach at Bristol Rugby) following a slight mix-up at a session earlier in the year. He'd promised a full turnout and didn't disappoint the kids!

Rob Higgit (centre) oversaw the whole session with Steve Armson, chair of CCRFC's Development Squad, and took training with the Under 13s. The other players were:

• Bernado Stortoni (full back), an Argentinian international, who took the Under 6s
• Mariano Sambucetti (lock), also an Argentinian international, who took the Under 7s
• Jason Hobson (prop), an ex England Under 21, who took the Under 8s
• Luke Arscott (full-back), a recent signing from Plymouth, who took the Under 9s
• Andy Reay (centre), ex-Under 21s international signed from Harlequins last summer, who took the Under 10s
• Walter Pozzebon (centre), an Italian international, who took the Under 11s
• Chris Hallam (scrum-half) who is a current member of the England 7s set-up took the Under 15s and also gave some specialist passing coaching to a couple of the squad's aspiring scrum-halves

Overall, the morning was a fantastic success, the players got stuck right in, and the kids thoroughly enjoyed the session. Castle Cary have been visited by a number of clubs in the past, but this was by far the best session. Castle Cary have forged strong links with Bristol over the past couple of seasons and the support will go from strength to strength.

See this gallery page for photos of the visit.