With just over two weeks until their Varsity clash against Worcester, preparations are well and truly underway for the University of Gloucestershire’s Rugby team.
After a successful league season, winning the BUCS Rugby Union Western 1A last month, Director of Rugby Chris Downes and his squad are hopeful of going that step further and recording their fourth consecutive Varsity win on April 10th.
Downes said: “As fantastic as it is to win a league, and the guys celebrated it, the focus was straight away on Varsity.”
Despite winning the last three fixtures against Worcester, the squad understand the task at hand and are certain that complacency won’t come into play.
“We’ve been on the other side of this as well,” Downes said. “We were the under-dogs against Worcester and we managed to turn them over a couple of times when they were in a higher league.
“We’re fully aware that it is a one-off match and anything can happen.
“We’re very focused on ourselves and getting what we want to do right.”
A challenge the boss faces heading into the game is choosing his starting 15.
With new faces in the 30-man squad, competition for places is extremely high this year.
“I have absolutely no idea!” Downes revealed when asked if he knew who will start.
“I don’t want to single out any players. We deliberately took a bigger group this year because of the success we’ve had.
“We don’t want to turn up and expect to win, we need to put pressure on the players.
“We’re in a position where we could select any single one of them and every single player, including Jon (captain), has got pressure on him from another player.”
For 4th year student and team captain, Jon Lloyd, this will be his final Varsity game and he is keen to finish on a high.
“It’s probably my last game and you want a good send off,” Jon said. “Especially after being here for four years.
“It’s been a good few years for me and it’s vital to end that by getting the big win.”
It’s a stressful time of year for a lot of the third and fourth year students as they come to the end of their degrees, but Jon believes having the right support is vital in helping them through it.
“You train so much, and University work becomes less of a priority.
“Time management is really important and if you can do all that by yourself, great, but the majority of us can’t.
“Whether it’s your mate in the rugby team or your mum, dad, brother, you’ve just got to have that support.”
This years men’s and women’s Rugby Varsity matches against Worcester take place between 1-6pm on Wednesday April 10th at Moseley Rugby Club in Birmingham.
Tickets are available for University of Gloucestershire students on the SU website.
Date Written: March 25th 2019 | Part of assessed university work
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