BILLED as the “Real Varsity Match”, this inaugural annual fixture between the apparent “powerhouses” of the student game was organised to demonstrate the quality of university rugby. Here was an occasion to test out the claim that, in recent years, the English game has enjoyed unprecedented strength in depth at all levels. The standard, as to be expected of decent student sides, had much skill but not nearly enough drill, especially in defence.
A strong Bath start suggested that Loughborough were yet to recover from the exertions of training with the full England squad the previous week. For 20 minutes the home side dominated play. Dan Grey repeatedly threw cut-out passes past his centre to Jack Smales, the advancing full back. Such a move produced their only score, Smales bursting through and sidestepping the covering tackle.
The Bath’s midfield shortly transpired to be as fragile as the cut glass trophy for which the sides were playing. Three tries were scored in the space of nine minutes, Alex Hayman going over twice and Ben Griffiths adding one in between.
A scoreless second half followed and although the game was scrappy, the players could hardly be blamed for having their heads turned by a 4,000-strong crowd. A promising debut for this contest then, but it will have to be around a very long time to match that “other” University game.
SCORERS: Bath University: Try: Smales (18min). Conversion: Grey. Loughborough University: Tries: Hayman 2 (24, 29), Griffiths (26). Conversions: Hurst 3.
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SCORING SEQUENCE (Bath first): 7-0, 7-7, 7-14, 7-21 (half-time).
BATH UNIVERSITY: J Smales; O Rowlands, O Evans, G Rees, D Hitchcock (rep: R McCracken, 59); D Grey, R McGuire (rep: J Babb, 80); A Hopcroft, G Binding (rep: A Lewis, 60), R Dugard (rep: C Lillis, 60), R Meredith (rep: G Haart, 80), S Puckering, J Gould (rep: L Rhiorden, 60), S Hocking (rep: T Booth, 80), M Corker.
LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY: T Hurst; N Lear, R Gomer Davis, A Hayman, A Banfield; J Abrahams, A Houston; M Webber, T Brotherton (rep: D James, 50), D Bassett (rep: G Jones, 50), B Griffiths, B Walker, M Cairns (rep: S Moss, 60), P Clarke (rep: T Yellow Lees, 70), T Walker.
Referee: A Spreadbury.