Keble plays great part in Oxford rugby success
Tuesday 03 January 2012
Keble students have made a great contribution to recent Oxford rugby varsity victories.
On 8th December Twickenham hosted the 130th Varsity Match. Oxford recorded an excellent victory, winning the match 28-10, the biggest margin since 1988. A driving maul set up a penalty chance for Cambridge in the first few minutes, of which they took full advantage. But that was to be the only lead Cambridge would have in the game. Oxford hit back immediately, with a converted try followed by a penalty. Cambridge were awarded a penalty try from a scrum to even out the scores, but a second penalty put Oxford ahead at 13-10 on 30 minutes. A second try on 46 minutes from an Oxford maul saw the scores widen, and another penalty and converted try meant that it was game over at 28-10. Keble first year law student Samson Egerton was awarded the privilege of a starting place on the pitch at scrum half and D.Phil student (systems approaches to biomedical sciences) and MCR Male Welfare Officer Anthony Connor came on to replace Govind Oliver to secure his second consecutive blue.
Coming off the back of a very successful build up towards Twickenham the under 21’s came to face Cambridge full of confidence having most recently comfortably beaten a strong Richmond team and put on an impressive display of running rugby against an Austrian team, victors 104-0. The opening exchanges were fairly equal, with Cambridge showing some strong forward running and the Oxford backline managing to stretch Cambridge’s defence. This proved to be the first to break with Dan Lavene darting over. Cambridge rapidly struck back soon after the restart before no 8 Ben Girling charged over from a line-out peel around 15m out and Keble’s John Harkness sped over on the left wing off a turnover ball. Oxford then appeared to step back allowing Cambridge into the game with penalties either side of half time. However these were to be the last scores in the match, with the final result 19-11. Keble had a strong representation: Dan Barnes (Engineering 2nd Year) at Hooker, Matt Craggs (E&M 2nd Year) at Lock and Duncan Bucknell (Chemistry 3rd Year) Putting in a man of the match performance at Blindside Flanker. Not forgetting on the wing John Harkness (PPE 3rd Year) with his try scoring performance.
Keble students Sam Inglis and Tom O’Donnell also represented Oxford for Greyhounds and Whippets’ 2011 Varsity respectively.
Tatiana Cutts and Matt Craggs
