A first victory of the season for Edge Hill University’s rugby league side was one of the highlights of the latest round of BUCS league fixtures.
The Tigers claimed a 24-0 victory over Huddersfield firsts in Northern Tier 1 to climb off the foot of the table. Scoreless at the break, Brad Calland’s long ball was latched onto by Jacob Ashley for the first score, before Calland went over himself following Alex Fitzhenry’s break. Ashley (again), Sam Makin and Harry Phillips scored the other tries, with Nathan Taylor kicking the remaining points.
Team of the Week went to the unbeaten men’s firsts’ tennis squad, who inflicted a first defeat on Keele firsts 4-2 away from home. Two-down after the first singles rubbers, Oliver Macneil and Archie Dubbins were victorious in their matches, before the doubles. Joe Wilkinson and Dubbins teamed up to win their clash in under an hour, before Luke Myles and Macneil completed the job in straight sets.
There was no such luck for the University’s football and rugby union teams. The former sport saw the men’s firsts go down 3-2 at Liverpool firsts, while the seconds lost 1-0 to Northern Tier 4 Division One leaders UCLAN seconds. Meanwhile, in the 15-a-side game, the men’s firsts were beaten for the first time this campaign, going down 15-5 to Liverpool Hope firsts, while their female counterparts suffered defeat in their first match of the season, their depleted outfit losing 71-15 to Durham seconds, who ran in 11 tries.
There was disappointment, too, for the men’s hockey team, unbeaten champions of Northern 3A in 2018/19, who went down 4-2 at Northern Tier 2 Division One leaders Lancaster firsts – although the absence of key men didn’t help their cause. The home side had the better of the game throughout, and they led early on before Edge Hill hit back, Michael Rogers teeing up skipper Matthew Stacey to dink his side level, a short-lived parity as Lancaster restored their advantage to lead at the break. Two more followed in the second half before Stacey again netted on the rebound, following a short corner won after good work by Ross Gordon.
In basketball, the men’s seconds were unfortunate to go down 57-56 to Sunderland seconds, and there were 5-3 defeats in badminton for the men’s thirds (v Liverpool Hope firsts) and women’s seconds (v UCLAN firsts) – while the netball thirds shared the spoils in a 29-29 draw with Liverpool fifths.
In what proved a tough round for many sides, there were at least wins in netball (the seconds defeating Lancaster thirds 42-35) and badminton (women’s firsts, 5-3 victors over Keele firsts).
