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TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2013 |
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Exeposé
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Will Kelleher & Mike Stanton sport@exepose.com JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP Exeposé Sport
EURFC aim for three on the trot
Photo: Joshua Irwandi
EULHC flying high Ladies Hockey Issy Bailey EULHC Team Member
EULHC’s BUCS Record thus far... Played 9 Won 7 Drawn 1 Lost 1 Goal Difference 22 Points 22
>> Bath despair as Exeter celebrate after their last-gasp 16-14 win over their West Country rivals in 2011
Rugby Union Will Kelleher Sports Editor
ON Wednesday 13 February Exeter’s Rugby Union 1st XV will face their Bath counterparts in this year’s Rugby Varsity at the home of Exeter Chiefs, Sandy Park. Proceeds from the game will be going towards a donation to C-R-Y (Cardiac Risk in the Young) but with BUCS league points at stake this match-up will be far from a friendly. Exeter currently sit second of the Premier South A Division with Bath lying in 4th, ten points behind with two games left to play in the normal season.
“EURFC have won all five of their BUCS home league games and have only lost three in total gaining no less than eight bonus points ” It has been a great year for the 1st XV; they have won all of their five BUCS home league games and have
only lost three in total gaining no less than eight bonus points along the way. Bath will be looking to make amends after last year’s 16-14 Varsity defeat and will present a tough challenge to the men in green. Exeter’s good form has not gone unnoticed with the Blanchet brothers, Sam and Justin, alongside Mike Pope, Rob Coote and Jaime Gray, all representing Exeter Chiefs in the LV=Cup. As well as this Dante O’Reilly, Toby Bain, Aaron Struminski and Ben King have all played in the ‘A’ League for the South West’s premier club. Pope, Coote and Gray have recently been selected for England Students with J. Blanchet joining up with the England U20s training squad soon. EURFC will be looking to win their third home Varsity in a row after an epic 16-14 win in 2012 and a slightly more comfortable 23-12 win back in 2011. The match on the 13th is an exciting event for Exeposé as for the first time in our history we will be producing an eight-page Varsity pull-out all about the match. We have nine reporters and three photographers attending the game
and the pull-out will be complete with match report, comment piece, player reaction, all the statistics you need to know, player ratings and lots of high quality photos. We are using the hashtag #varsity13 so if you are tweeting about the big game please use it! The pull-out will have a ‘best of your tweets’ section so it’s an easy way to get your name in the paper. The pull out will be out on campus from Tuesday 19 February and will hopefully become an annual feature so get your hands on a copy.
“We are using the hashtag #varsity13: an easy way to get your name in the paper” The Varsity is set to be a huge event, supported by the Cheerleading squad, and David Wall, social secretary for EURFC, cannot contain his excitement ‘Varsity is set to be the biggest we have ever had, and it seems only right, as the first XV are flying high in the league and should put on a top performance in front of over three thousand
people. Buses leave from campus and take you straight to the stadium and then drop you off either at timepiece to (hopefully) help celebrate a big win, or back to campus.’
“Your £5 ticket will get you a seat at Sandy Park and coach travel to and from the stadium on the night” Tickets can be bought from EURFC members who are currently parading around campus resplendent in their stash. Close to 4,000 raucous students will fill the stands and EURFC are looking for as many as possible to buy tickets to give them the biggest home advantage possible. Your £5 ticket will get you a seat at Sandy Park and coach travel to and from the stadium. Buses leave Streatham Campus at 17:45, 18:30 and 19:15 before the match and at regular intervals afterwards. With the after party at Timepiece afterwards it is an event on the sporting and social calendar not to be missed.
AS it stands, the EULHC 1st team top the BUCS Premier South table with a total of 19 points after a hugely successful first half of the season. With a four point lead and strong goal difference score of +21, the team is in a brilliantly promising position to win the league at the end of this 2012/2013 season. Our second game; a well fought 2 – 0 away win over Bath University in October, showed the first signs of the transition of nervous freshers into more relaxed players within the team. It hasn’t all been easy, but the team has shown it can dig deep when called for, proven by our tough away game to Oxford, in which we were held to a draw – our only one this season. Other notable performances must be a 4 – 0 win away to Cambridge in November and the most recent home game to Gloucestershire University as, even after a two month break since our last match, due to the Christmas break followed by disruptive snowfalls, the rust clearly hadn’t set in. The end result, a 7 – 0 win, got us seriously excited about our coming fixtures, not to mention the Cup, which is to start later this term. With just two matches to go until the Cup draw, against Bristol on 30 January and Gloucestershire on 6 February, the team is looking to achieve two strong victories, to ensure a beneficial draw and a strong foundation on which to build our chance of a high final position. So far this season, the team has gone from strength to strength under captain Claire Thomas, and on behalf of the freshers I’d like to thank everyone in years above us for taking us on and making us a part of the team. Team spirit, demonstrated not only in matches but in every hideously early conditioning session, musical bus journey and interestingly costumed Timepiece Wednesday, promises to remain an undeniable trait for the rest of the term. Hopes are high as we go into this second half of the season on top form, aiming for peak positions in both our league and the coming cup.