Nick Wright previews this weekend's clash between York City Knights and Hull FC
Alex Reid looks at whether the once ever-present appearance of English clubs in the later stages of the Champions League is set to become a thing of the past
Craig Dobson looks at QPR's decision to sack Neil Warnock and replace him with Mark Hughes
James Tompkinson reviews an excellent pre-season victory for the York City Knights against Yorkshire rivals Leeds Rhinos
Three weeks in and its already looking like the Men’s first are storming their way through the season, winning their third consecutive game away to Northumbria. The Men’s 2nds and Women’s 1sts also tasted success for the first time this season while the Men’s 3rd had a disappointing loss away to Bradford. But despite this week’s success, so far it’s been mixed fortunes for the 2nd and 3rd teams, so predictions for this upcoming season is anyone’s guess.
This Wednesday saw the Women play their first game of the season with a 14-3 win over Leeds Met 2nds, two tries coming from scrum half Emma Nugent. However Leeds couldn’t field a full side so the game was played 12 V 10 in York’s advantage and reduced to hour. Injury to Leeds Met during the game took their total to nine players and the game was abandoned after only 25 minutes. A victory nonetheless, but it will be interesting to see how the Fresher’s will cope in a full 15 aside game.
The Men’s 3rd also played their first game but tasted bitter defeat losing 61-5 away to Bradford 1sts, but hopefully as the season progresses we’ll see the team gel together and get those all important points on the board. Likewise, after 2 defeats so far in the Men’s 2nds we finally saw them gain their first win of the season against Newcastle 3rds with a modest score of 8-5. It will be a tough test for the 2nds next week when they face Sunderland 1sts in the first round of the BUCS cup let’s hope they take confidence from this first win and focus their efforts into winning next week.
Continuing success from the previous 2 years, the Men’s 1sts had a great win this week coming behind from a 12-0 deficit to beat Northumbria 48-17 putting them top of the BUCS table. After a few setbacks in training and a minor screw up with the kit, the Men (having to play in their training kit) kicked off the game in very windy conditions. The first try of the match was a result of poor tacking from the York side which put Northumbria 7-0 up, quickly followed by an interception leaving York 12-0 down.
York’s first try saw Rick Welsch crash over the line, after a drive of 15m from a lineout, 2 more tries quickly followed before half time was called leaving the score at 15-12 in York’s favour. The second half saw Northumbria on the back foot and 5 minutes into the second half Pollen scored under the sticks followed by Mortie first conversion of the game. Four more tries from York and a break from Northumbria 10 minutes before the end of the game left the score line at 48-17.
Overall a great week for University Rugby, but now all the first matches have been played the real test begins for these players as the BUCS cup approaches and hopefully the victories for both the first teams won’t make them too cocky as they have a long season ahead of them.
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