BUCS Focus: W1 Rugby Union

A nailbiting rematch of last season’s W1 Rugby Union championship final saw Northumbria University narrowly lose to reigning champions Edinburgh 20-17. 

Heading into the tie, Team Northumbria had recorded resounding victories against Newcastle and Loughborough and were pushing for a late try which would have secured another famous win.

But the hosts were unable to come away with the win under the lights of Kingston Park. 

And while the loss was tough to take, both head coach Jack Lambert and W1 starting flanker Hannah Illingworth admitted they had seen some real differences after this year’s heartbreaker at Twickenham. 
 

“We’re very disappointed with the defeat,” said Lambert.

“It’s tough to take given how close the game was but we’re confident that we can bounce back and go into the rest of the season and perform.

“I think we can get a win against Edinburgh when we play them at their place.”

Illingworth added: “We’ve stepped up so much since then [the final].

“We really took it too them with some hard hits and we were on the front foot for large spells. 

“It’s a shame that the half-time whistle went when it did and we were in their half again for spells during the second half too. 

“I thought Lindsey Taylor had an absolutely cracking game today. But to be honest we all stepped up and I thought our defence was good too. 

“This loss was so narrow because of our defence. We were in every ruck and we were competing for everything. 

And Illingworth was adamant that the work that the girls have put in during the off season is paying off.

“Our pre-season this year was really challenging,” she added. “I think it’s set us in good stead for the season. 

“The new coaches have come in, put us through our paces and really challenged us. 

“We’re a lot fitter than we’ve ever been and we’re training a lot harder. I think we’re in the right place to keep putting points on the board. 

“We’ve got Durham next week who we lost to last year, so that’ll be a good competitive game. It’ll be a good test for us and we want to show them what we can do.”