A gritty display from the Blues has landed them a third consecutive win in their BUSC league campaign against a physical Nottingham Trent side.

Two goals from Kunal Desai and Sam Hall were enough to earn Oxford a 4-2 win in what turned into an ugly contest at the end, with both sides feeling the referee was not offering protection against progressively poor fouls. The game started at a frantic tempo, and it was Oxford who took an extremely early lead after good work down the left. A chipped cross from Toogood found Hall, who had timed his run from midfield perfectly. He found the space to chest the ball down before volleying beyond the keeper to give the Blues an ideal start.

However it seemed that this start had lead to a bit of complacency, and Oxford were soon facing a barrage of corner-kicks as Nottingham Trent piled on the pressure. The Blues were grateful for some last-ditch tackles from both Tom Wherry and Leon Farr as they struggled to contain a resurgent opposition, whilst Tom Orphin-Massey was booked for a cynical challenge on the edge of the area. The writing had been on the wall for a while, and Nottingham Trent finally equalised, capitalising on indecision between goalkeeper Dwayne Whylly and centre backs Orphin-Massey and Wherry, as the Nottingham Trent striker was able to latch onto an innocuous ball forward before calmly slotting the ball over the head of Whylly.

This seemed to further rejuvenate Nottingham Trent and they began to dominate both possession and chances, with ‘keeper Whylly forced into a number of relatively comfortable saves as the half wore on. Midfielder Cameron Knight was booked for a late tackle as Oxford began to become frustrated and chase the ball, compounding their problems in doing so and allowing the opposition to find more space within the Oxford half. Oxford was the more grateful of the teams when the half-time whistle went with the scores at 1-1, perhaps feeling lucky not to be behind.

‘The team-talk at half-time did the job’

The team-talk at half-time obviously did the job, as Oxford came out of the blocks quickly and retook the lead again within 5 minutes. A sweeping cross-field ball from McCrickerd was misjudged by both central defenders and allowed Desai the opportunity to calmly slot the ball past the keeper. This time there wasn’t a hint of complacency in the air, and Oxford started to find more room in the middle of the park as the opposition began to tire. Good work from Farr and McCrickerd released Toogood down the right, and his floated ball in was finished with style by Desai as his diving header secured his second goal of the day.

This doubling of Oxford’s lead seemed to be a signal to the opposition to ratch up the physicality of their game, and rash challenges were seen across the pitch, with the referee offering little protection. However, the referee’s insistence on keeping the game flowing was rewarded when Oxford were able to use an advantage given by the referee to further their lead. After Toogood had fed James Kelly, the winger was fouled on the edge of the area in a dangerous position but had already passed the ball to Hall. Hall did the rest, and a curling shot from 25 yards left the ‘keeper motionless, and a jubilant Oxford side preparing for another home win.

Further good chances were spurned by Oxford as they looked to put the game beyond doubt, but Nottingham Trent continued to have opportunities, although Whylly was rarely tested properly. As so often happens in football games where a side has a dominant lead, the losing side turned to violence, and with just 15 minutes to go Nottingham Trent were reduced to 10 men after a wild lunge by their central midfielder on Kelly long after the play had been stopped. The game threatened to turn into a farce as the yellow cards flowed freely, with Toogood booked for a late challenge, and three opposition players also booked inside the last 10 minutes.

Oxford were given a scare as their lead was reduced to two, with a dangerous ball headed into the top corner by captain Wherry for a spectacular goal. However, Oxford were able to stand strong and finish the game off, with substitutes Flood, Weston and Mayou again providing fresh legs that saw the Blues through to their third consecutive win – the last in a series of victories which have all come against teams considered potential league challengers.

‘Trent were reduced to 10 men after a wild lunge’

Skipper Wherry was delighted with his team’s success, and especially at the style in which it was achieved, with this being a more physical Blues performance than we have seen so far this season. The captain said: “It was a hard fought game and we really had to stick up for ourselves. Sometimes teams come to Iffley Road to bully what they perceive will be a weak Oxford side, but we showed that we can compete on this level, and then showed the ability to beat them for quality on the ball, scoring four very good goals”.

The double from Desai ensured that all four of the Blues strikers have now got off the mark, with Niko De Walden having also scored twice last week to secure a comfortable 3-0 win over last year’s runners-up Worcester. Despite a cagey first-half display from Oxford, the arrival of substitute De Walden spurred them on, and he scored twice inside 15 minutes to take the game beyond a quickly tiring Worcester side. Toogood scored the third after De Walden’s shot was blocked to take his tally for the BUSC campaign to 5 from 3. It is an impressive start to the season for the Blues, who will no doubt be eager to trouble the top of the table. The way they have begun this season suggests they should have no trouble achieving their aim.

BLUES 4
NOTTINGHAM TRENT 2

Both teams went into this match desperately hoping for a victory; after two straight defeats, the Saints knew that if they were to stand any chance of surviving in the second division they had to win. Worcester, on the other hand, were coming off the back of a drubbing by Magdalen and needed the points to restart their season and avoid being dragged into a relegation dogfight.

However, it was the Saints, who took to the field sporting a new kit, that struck the first blow. From the kick-off they pressured Worcester at the breakdown, forcing mistakes and gaining territory. After driving the ball deep into the Worcester half, stand-in fly half Evans-Young switched the direction of play down the blind side and crashed over the line. The subsequent conversion fell just short, in what was to be the start of a poor display of place kicking. With their two first choice kickers out injured, the Saints will be glad that on the day it wasn’t close enough for these missed opportunities to matter.

However, it was clear that Worcester were not going to lie down and let the fast pace set by the Saints intimidate them. The inspiration they were looking for came from their own fly-half, with his brand of powerful running and elusive side-step, borne of his time spent playing Blues rugby league. But his team mates were unable to capitalise on the holes he punched in the Saints back line, whilst the usually temperamental kicking boot of Evans-Young allowed his team to get out of trouble and play the game in the Worcester half. Having survived a period of pressure, they created a second try, with a well worked scrum resulting in Jonathan Ward crossing to make the game 10-0.

Although both teams seemed quite evenly matched it was becoming clear that the clinical finishing of the Saints when presented with chances was the difference between the two. As conditions deteriorated, and handling became more difficult, the scrum became more of a factor. The experience of Oliver Adams at tight head against the seemingly inexperienced front row of Worcester led to several being wheeled in the Saints’ favour. However, with several players out of position in the back row, scrum half Henry Fraser was given no protection allowing the Worcester scrum half AJ Campbell to torment him throughout the game, constantly disrupting Fraser’s service from the set piece.

As half time approached, the previously reliable Saints defence fell asleep from a lost line out, causing a dog leg in defence which was taken advantage of by the quick hands of the Worcester backs, sending their winger over in the corner.

Clearly angry at having allowed Worcester back into the game, the Saints immediately replied after half time. A well worked switch in midfield gave livewire centre Ben Butterfield the space he had been craving as he left three defenders standing in his wake before diving over. However, they were unable to capitalise, as they insisted on giving penalty after penalty away, before Worcester finally took advantage of poor Saints defence around the fringes, and scored from short range.

Despite having seen their lead diminish, the Saints seemed galvanised by the try. The break in play also saw the introduction of a number of late arrivals in the Saints line-up, with outside centre Josh Stone making the most obvious impact with some crunching tackles in midfield. As the fresh legs of the Saints began to make a difference, second row Johnny Crockett finally started to make his height tell and dominated the lineout, both offensively and defensively. It was from one of these set pieces that the next try came, a disciplined maul from the Saints allowing number eight Charles Steward to touch down.

The final nail in the coffin came in the form of a try by Saints winger Balakrishnan, quiet until that moment, who cut a good line from another blindside move. All that was left to do was for Steward to claim his second of the day from another maul, putting the game beyond reasonable doubt.

With their first win of the season, the Saints have made things interesting at the bottom of division two, with both of today’s teams, plus Christ Church, all contenders for the drop. It will be a nail-biting end to the season as all three of them attempt to secure survival, and the Saints will hope that they can maintain this form into next week’s game against Magdalen.

ANNE’S/JOHN’S 32
WORCESTER 10

This league one clash between promoted Corpus/Linacre and relegated Lincoln promised a tantalising spectacle, pitting two teams with something to prove against each other. It appeared to be running predictably, with ex-premiership Lincoln controlling a scrappy game to score either side of the half, until Corpus/Linacre suddenly netted a pair. As the final whistle blew at 2-2, the match had provided high octane entertainment without answering any questions; both teams will be relieved to have avoided defeat but also regret failing to carve out a win.

Corpus/Linacre kicked off, but Lincoln claimed possession and swarmed past the right-back to win the first of a series of throw-ins. Corpus/Linacre were reduced to repeatedly booting the ball up-field in defence, and could not contrive any convincing response. Lincoln though, lacked the penetration to capitalise on this pressure. Their tall number 12 was unable to make his presence felt, except for one neat dummy past two defenders, as the game began to assume a back-and-forth rallying.

Corpus/Linacre started to have some joy down the left, mostly due to the impressive Carl Gaffney. Lincoln still appeared the stronger in this haphazard game, however, withtheir defence unflappably dealing with their opposition’s. Although Corpus/Linacre created a chance from a corner, Lincoln generated a far more purposeful air.

‘Lincoln’s goal was bombarded’

Left-back McMurray shuttled up and down the wing with vigour, enabling striker Josh Thomas to shoot wide, and soon after centre-mid Biggs made an aerial pass to the right wing that resulted in Webber scrambling through a cloud of defenders to poke the ball in by the far post.

Corpus/Linacre responded to this setback with genuine energy. Their captain produced a good run on the right, but lacking support had to settle for a corner. From this, Lincoln’s goal was bombarded, twice requiring goal-line clearances, but once again Corpus/Linacre could not put the chances away. Miletic again led his team forward, but was neatly cut off by centre-back Morten. Lincoln’s defence perhaps looked more solid than it was, lacking any real test. Indeed, when Miletic ceased looking to his team-mates and pressed forward alone, he managed to cut through and was stopped only by the keeper sliding at his feet.

Lincoln looked comfortable, but suggestions of flaws in their play began to show in the second half. They claimed a second quickly, Thomas exploiting his pace to rush through a buckling defence and tap past the keeper, which should have made the game theirs. For a while, this seemed so; Corpus/Linacre threw themselves forward but still seemed to lack edge. Their centre-forward Francis Carr threaded through to Gaffney, who could not quite match the speed of Morten, appearing swiftly to close him down. A free kick soon after turned into a tame trickle to the Lincoln wall.

‘A draw was a suitable result’

Corpus/Linacre’s energy did pay off though as Carr benefitted from a nice pass from Miletic to make a simple finish, Lincoln’s absent defence at fault. Lincoln themselves felt this, re-discovering their aggressive intent; Thomas shot wide, and Biggs scooped over.

However, they clearly felt restricted by the pressure, pulling every player save Thomas back to defend a corner. There could be no solution to Tom Guest though, who curved the ball over the defence with a spectacular overhead kick into the top left corner.

Corpus/Linacre were invigorated, while Lincoln, pushed out of their comfort zone, couldn’t struggle back. Gaffney and Carr combined again for the latter to shoot onto the cross-bar, and any Lincoln counter-attacks were quickly stifled.With both teams chastened, the frenetic final few minutes yielded no further score, and a draw was perhaps the only suitable result for a game of such sudden switches and reversals.

Matt Evans-Young: Against

Do you imagine that Joe Roff, the recently departed ex-Australia rugby player, went through the same interview process as many of the people that are reading this article?

I can’t imagine a nervous Joe sitting in front of several tutors being grilled as to why he chose Politics, Philosophy and Economics. To be honest, I would have loved to have read his personal statement. The same goes for Anton Oliver, the Dark Blues’ newest superstar recruit, as well as almost all of last year’s Blues boat. Let’s not kid ourselves: most these athletes probably weren’t offered a place at Oxford because of their academic prowess. Do you think that 3 people in last years Varsity boat all just happen to have an interest in management research, or is there perhaps something about the degree and about the way in which these people passed Oxford’s stringent entry requirements that prompted them to choose it?
I obviously know the argument for letting athletes of this calibre into our University; while they get a Masters of some description for their year here, they give back to the University, be it in the form of coaching, prestige or just simply success. I’m sure that those of the opinion that this type of recruitment is a good thing will point to the fact that Oxford has a long tradition of sporting excellence in certain fields, and this is just adding to that history.

But is it not tarnishing our reputation in some ways? Oxford has produced many fine rugby players, there’s no doubt. People such as Stewart Barnes have gone on to represent England. But this was in the days when professionalism in sport was nowhere near the level it is now. Players of the quality of Barnes nowadays would be going straight into the premiership, skipping out university entirely. Now the only way we can get players of the same standard is pick them up after their illustrious careers have ended. Why has Oxford produced so few footballers of note? Maybe because football has been professional for much longer than rugby; perhaps we should accept that sport itself has moved on. Although some may point to America as a place where the best talent in the country is courted by universities, we must remember that this is because, in sports such as American football, the draft system means that these athletes wouldn’t be able to make it as a professional without the development with which college athletics provides them. That is not the case here. Watching the boat race last year, it was hard to empathise with the Oxford team, a mix-match of various world championship competitors, all but one of them on a one year course, perhaps killing time after not making their respective Olympic squads. How is the average student to relate to these people? We won! Fantastic! But does that prove we’re better at sport than Cambridge, or just better at recruiting?

The ultimate goal for anyone taking part in sport at this university is a Blue. This policy of trying to lure the best talent possible with promises of easy qualifications and special treatment surely has a detrimental effect on the undergraduates who strive to reach the top of Oxford sport. Granted, there are several undergraduates in the OURFC squad, and they are performing very well, but what can you imagine would be said to an aspiring hooker with hopes of appearing at Twickenham? Probably something along the lines of “sorry mate, we’ve got the most capped All Blacks hooker of all time, good luck in the second team”.

What we have now is Oxford and Cambridge operating a form of ringer system in the blue ribbon sports. It’s the playground equivalent of someone getting their big brother and his mates to play in a kick around. These teams do not reflect the Oxford student population as a whole. How many of the Blues rowers do you see down at Park End on a Wednesday? And if they do not represent the university, if the university has no real affinity with them, then what is the point? The recruitment process for these top sports is essentially just a free meal ticket for retired pros and idle world champions, with a degree in management research at the end of it.

Sean Lennon: For

Now this isn’t what I’m here to argue, but to say that all these sportsmen are academically inferior is frankly a myth. Pretty much all of these supposedly suspicious sportsmen have sterling backgrounds.

OUBC President Colin Smith, for example, this year a silver medallist in Beijing, has a degree from St Catz. Nick Brodie, 2008’s victorious Boat Race cox, completed his undergraduate degree in Geography in Oxford, and a whole host of the others have degrees from institutes as prestigious as Yale, Harvard and Imperial. Even Anton Oliver, former New Zealand rugby star turned blue, not only possesses a degree from his home in Otago but also openly aired concerns that he was accepted into Oxford for his rugby prowess alone. Notably, it is reported that such concerns were dismissed by the admissions tutors.

Yet like I said, that’s not what I’m here to argue. Frankly, I don’t actually care what degrees the elite sportsmen of Oxford are pursuing. This is after all a sports column, and what matters is that these lambasted individuals are elite sportsmen. Universities (yes, even the creaking halls of Oxford and Cambridge) are centres of sporting excellence across the globe, no matter how much that annoys academics. In America, they are the foundation for professional basketball and American football, while at home Loughborough can be seen as a sporting academy for anything from athletics to cricket.

Why then are we supposedly immune from this worldwide trend? Academic snobs may scoff, but Oxford is inarguably a centre for all manner of sporting excellence from athletics, to rugby, and to, of course, rowing.

In this last category, our influence is not just current, but historic; the boat race has been a feature of the British sporting calendar for well over a hundred years. It is numbered alongside such milestone events as the Grand National as one with its terrestrial TV rights protected to keep it in the public eye. Clearly then, the Boat Race is as much of an institution to Oxford as college sport is in America. With this in mind what exactly do the naysayers propose? To restrict Oxford sporting entry to British undergraduates? Rubbish. The standard of rowing would fall catastrophically, and what was once an Oxford tradition would plummet to the depths of mediocrity.

Yet in no way do the benefits end here. Allowing the top sportsmen from across the globe to compete for Oxford can only be beneficial for other sporstmen. How much will the current rugby squad be learning from the professionalism and experience of Anton Oliver, or the current crop of British oarsmen from Olympic medallist Colin Smith? The evidence is indeed in the results. Just last week OURFC took a professional outfit, Worcester Warriors, to pieces, while previous young British rowers such as Smith himself, Andy Triggs-Hodge and Tom James have gone on to great heights after having rowed with the best at Oxford. Really, those with the most vehement complaints are those who can’t make the squad, but to be honest, if they aren’t good enough, they might as well go home.

Aside from the sheer standard of the sport, does it not fill the rest of us as spectators with pride at the brilliance of our sports teams? Not only is the Boat Race watched by millions worldwide, but our rugby and football Varsity games are played in professional grounds. The rugby is at Twickenham on Sky Sports One, for God’s sake! I’m sure very few of the massive crowd cheering on our boaties to an enormous win over the Tabs this year really cared who was in the boat. With the college system being so divisive, something has to fill us with communal pride and the brilliance of our sports teams is largely it.

So for tradition, sporting class and communal pride, lay aside your complaints and get behind our star sportsmen, because at the end of the day, doesn’t everybody just love to win?

How has training been going? Is there a good team spirit?

Training is going very well. We have been working very hard to build a strong team and team spirit and morale is high. There is a general attitude around the club that every player is concentrated on constant performance improvement and a genuine determination to succeed.

What is a typical day in the life a rugby blue?

I am reading for an MSc in Management Research so mornings start early with breakfast and time in the library, then classes, followed by a strength and conditioning session. Training begins in the early evening. Following training I usually head over to Tesco so I can cook a big meal. Then it’s back to the books and off to bed to do it all over again.

What’s the level like, having played most of your rugby in America?

The standard here at Oxford is amongst the highest I have ever had the privilege to be a part of. Rugby in America is still growing with most of the youth still concentrated on other sports.

You’ve had a good start to the season. What do you put this down to?

Our undefeated record is testament to the team’s dedication in pre-season and work in between matches. What’s great is that the players and staff are not satisfied with just a victory on the scoreboard. The entire team will dissect the game-film and learn from mistakes made and how to capitalize in the next match.

Has Anton Oliver been a positive influence on the team?

First and foremost, Anton is a great teammate. Not only does he have the ability to have great moments in the game, he also helps us all become better students of the game. Anton has brought almost 15 years of elite level professional experience to the team. But you realize that he is another teammate trying to earn a degree and play rugby for one of the world’s most elite Universities, just like the rest of us.

Do you think the widespread use of graduates at the top of

Oxford sport is unfair on aspiring undergraduate sportsmen?
I enjoy the fact that graduates have the opportunity to continue playing with OURFC. By the same token, it does build some competition for spots on the field. What is great about OURFC is that selection is based on merit, giving every player an opportunity to earn a spot.

Do you fancy your chances in Varsity?

We are improving every week as a team with a Varsity victory in December as the final goal.