UCLan Men and Women team continue to be successful in their cup run as they are both reached the semi-final stage of their respective competitions.

UCLan Men were up against one of their biggest rivals, Manchester University. The Men fielded one of their strongest line-ups of the season so it was expected this would be a great match to watch!! And it was like watching England vs. Australia in the 2003 RWC Final again as the game went into extra time after the score was tied 18-18! So another 20 minutes of pain begin again for the Men but it became joy as Alex Zavallis-Roebuck scored the winning try. The final score was 30-25.

UCLan Women played against Manchester Met University at Broughton Park RFC. With the bus turning up just 45 minutes before the game, the unfortunately the girls forgot the match kits. So the match preparation wasn’t going to plan the way UCLan wanted. But, thankfully Broughton Park was able to provide us ‘borrowed’ match kits.

So on to the match. MMU really went for the UCLan in the opening minutes of the game. However, UCLan put in the kind of big hits that make you shuddered so no way the girls were letting them through. UCLan started to get momentum going with the ball, with the backs working well together creating a lot of space for the speedy wingers. They showed great pace and put a lot of pressure on MMU as UCLan had a great percentage of the ball possession. The forwards were immense in the scrummaging and their ball carries were incredible as they blasted through hole in MMU defence. The desire and commitment of the team in attack and defence really showed as they won 37-0.

The try scorers were Stacey Bruce x 2, Kate Stothert x 2, Joey Edwards, Danielle Nash and Katie Doney with Alex Earley kicking one conversion. This was best performance the girls had played all season and hopefully will continue to play like this and definitely will be a hard team to beat.

So let hope for the double cup success for the Men and Women team.


Peter Altham (Coach)