The School of Engineering Rugby Club has had one of the most successful years ever in our history with a massive 72 members and an atmosphere that cannot be bettered. The year started off well with a great recruitment period by the new Vice Chairman Matt Oxborrow. We also started with a brand new kit and a new opportunity to play a lot more University teams as well as older men’s sides. Games against Warwick, Harper Adams and Keele lead to many well-organised bus trips to play a match and celebrate the victory on the way back.

The RFU have been in constant contact with the Club providing funding to make travel to matches as cheap as possible for our players. The RFU are excited to see where the Club is going due to our ability to welcome people of any standard.

As well as coordinating with the RFU, the Club has started a successful link with a local rugby club Dixionians RFC based in Bourneville. We have supplied them with some more experienced players which also gave some of our players additional game time. The successful link has given the Engineers a local base to play rugby and the relationship led to 4 Engineers being invited to go with Dixionians to watch England Vs Italy at Twickenham.

The links with the local rugby community have gone from strength to strength with weekly offers for games against local development sides like Moseley and Worcester. The most recent game was against Wolverhampton RFC 2nd XV on a Friday night under floodlights; this was a very competitive game against a well-established men’s team.

Our training has become more regular, often consisting of two sessions a week, a game on a Wednesday followed by another fixture on a Saturday. This has meant strong competition for places in the sides and for most games we have 27 players wanting to play. The Club has successfully organised more than 20 fixtures in the two terms, with most of the games being away.

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The greatest success of the year was the three Social Secretaries Josh Knight, Charlie Sprang and Ruairi Kester who have managed to organise outstanding social events every two weeks getting 40+ members attending most events. They also organised our first international trip to Malaga for a game of rugby against the University of Granada.

Rugby Tour 2017

Thisterm they successfully organised a day out to watch Wasps which have their home ground at the Coventry football stadium. Their final activity is to organise the last event of the year which is the Club Dinner. Overall a great year with Nick looking forward to passing on the captain’s reigns to Antonio Jardim for him to continue the clubs success.

If you agree that we’ve had a great year and should retain our “Sports Team of the Year” title, please nominate for an EPS Societies’ Award!

James O’Neill
Chairman 2016/17

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