Just add water
Producing high quality sports images can depend on many ingredients. They all have a value to somebody even if it just the local school’s rugby team in action.
First you get two teams with excellent players and coaches and put them in knock out round of a National Schools competition. Next you simply add water for at least two weeks before the match and rain on the day with a wind chill to -5C. Your end result is an epic battle of wits, power, determination and endurance. The prospect of playing in the final at Twickenham Stadium is always a mouth-watering proposition.
The Royal Grammar School v Bicton College U18 Nat West Cup match at the end of January proved to be spectacular and I spent most of the game under an umbrella looking for quality action images plus those that would help define how tough the game was. During the second half, the players were becoming exhausted and Bicton were awarded a penalty. The player who had been at the bottom of the ruck was on his knees and struggling to find the energy to stand up. Images like those do not come along very often.
The school loved the images and no doubt will be using them in all of their marketing and PR platforms for some time to come.
The Bucks Free Press newspaper gave us the key photo on the back page and dedicated a whole section inside with a picture spread of both the U18 and U15 games covered in the previous seven days.
