Despite last year’s triumphant victory of 30-6 for the Green and Gold, this year’s fixture had a very different story to tell.
Both sides are bottom of their BUCS leagues and have had comparably difficult seasons, so this was always set to be a tight fixture, with both sides looking for some glory to compensate for the poor results in the league.
The Green and Gold came bursting out the traps scoring two consecutive tries to make it 12-0. We gave away some penalties which allowed Trent to get one over the line to peg it back to 12-6. In the second half, we made it 18-6 with a try in the 53rd minute and another in the 65th minute to make it 22-6. We looked very strong and Trent seemed to have no answer to our back to back tries.
“Our comfortable lead became not so comfortable”
However, it all turned after the 70th minute, with Trent capitalising on more penalties in their favour and putting one over the line to pull it back to 22-12. The same happened again minutes later, and our comfortable lead of 16 points became not so comfortable, with the scoreboard now reading 22-18. After gaining momentum in the last 15 minutes of the game, Trent completed their third and final try of the second half to pip UoN’s seemingly set victory. It finished 22-24 and Trent’s performance in the second half cannot be understated.
The coveted Rugby league Varsity fixture did not disappoint! Well, the score was disappointing of course, but the match certainly wasn’t. An amazing game of rugby saw the closely matched teams fight it out until the final minutes.
UoN lost all momentum and gave it to Trent, allowing them to steal the victory with a mere two point margin. This fixture is always close, and it has now been 12 played with each side winning six a piece. After Super Wednesday the overall score for Varsity is UoN 1-1 Trent. The Green and Gold will need all of your support if we are to make it eight consecutive series wins, so get yourself down to the remaining events to cheer them on!
Zoe Burgess
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Featured image courtesy of The University of Nottingham, via Flickr, with DGTL Concepts.
