Andover U15 players Jacob Williams and Stanley North have recently been selected for the London Irish Silver group.

Both have played for Andover for many years and have progressed through the ranks of mini rugby into the successful youth set up where they put in good performances week after week for the U15s.

Jacob's success started with him gaining a place in the Hampshire School of Rugby/London Irish set up as an U13 and has been attending sessions at Farnborough for the past two seasons under the eye of the Hampshire coaches.

He went for county trials as an U14 player, but was unsuccessful and as an U15 moved up from bronze to silver group.

He also retrialled for the county team as an U15 and having gaining a place helped Hampshire onto victory v Surrey.

Stanley has had a similar story, but his pathway to the silver group has been somewhat more rapid.

He too trialled for the Hampshire School of Rugby as an U13 and went to county trials as an U14, but again was unsuccessful.

Despite this, he put in very strong performances for Ken White sponsored Andover and his coaches put him forward for county trials again as an U15.

This time he was selected by the county and he enjoyed his first game v Surrey alongside Jacob.

Due to an extremely strong performance, Stanley was rapidly put straight into the London Irish Silver group set up and played for the London Irish Academy team.