Rugby boy whose schooldays were novel (3,5)
I believe the answer is:
tom brown
'schooldays were novel' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.
'rugby boy' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'boy' could be 'tom' and 'tom' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'brown' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'whose' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for tom brown that I've seen is " schoolboy".)