2014/15 BUCS Review, Round 3: Taking shape

The BUCS rugby season has started to take shape in recent weeks, with early pacesetters making their mark and some strugglers looking to kick start their campaigns, this Wednesday’s round of fixtures were as intriguing as ever.

Starting off with one of the aforementioned pacesetters, Premier North A leaders Northumbria couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the year, winning their first three matches including derbies against Durham and Newcastle.

They would have been confident travelling down to West Yorkshire to take on a Leeds outfit still looking for their first points of the season.

Pete Weightman’s early try for the visitors ensured the game looked to be sticking to the script with Northumbria heading to a 16-11 success.

However, underdogs Leeds somehow rallied to upset all the odds with a dramatic try under the posts on the final play of the match to snatch the win.

The victory should give Leeds a huge injection of confidence as they look to avoid a repeat of last year, in which they propped up the table.

Meanwhile a dominant display at the scrum helped Newcastle pick up their first win, beating Loughborough 24-12 at home.

Ethan Harding and Justin Lear were among the try scorers in the bonus point success, whilst. RedPanda7s star Dave Serafini also scored with his first touch of the ball.

Moving on to Premier North B and there was a clash between two undefeated teams as Bishop Burton travelled to Durham 2nds.

Bishop Burton had made a bright start to their first season of Premier rugby, picking up maximum points with bonus point wins against Birmingham and Edinburgh, while Durham 2nds also found themselves on ten points after victories over Manchester and York.

It would be the more experienced of the two sides who came out on top as Durham secured their third successive bonus point win, 25-12, to move top of the table and inflict Bishop Burton’s first loss upon them.

Over in the Northern 2A division, Manchester Met thumped Liverpool 2nds 41-10 to earn the bragging rights in the North West derby and make it two wins from their opening two matches.

Switching our attention further south, early trailblazers Exeter continued their eye-catching start with their by beating visitors Cardiff Met 28-12 to stretch their unbeaten home run to almost two years.

Exeter led 8-0 at halftime through Aron Struminski’s try in the corner with Cardiff a man down after a sin binning.

Ben King also added a further touchdown in the second half which means the last time Exeter were beaten at home was November 7 2012.

In the divisions other game, Swansea travelled to Bath but were on the wrong end of a 47-3 mauling.
Bath’s forwards never allowed their opposition to get into the game and dominated at the set piece.

Swansea’s best efforts were always going to be stunted as they were reduced to 14 men on two occasions, and they will now be looking to put two heavy defeats since their opening day win behind them.

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