Hundreds turn up for Touch Tournament

A hectic schedule of group fixtures, semi finals and finals saw the 12 EUTRC teams on display exhibit just how much all of our beginners have come on in their first few months of touch, with some fantastic team displays and individual performances despite the conditions hardly being conducive for free flowing touch. 

There were strong Exeter performances throughout all of the groups which saw 6 Exeter sides progress to their respective finals.  Exeter Silver secured the spoon with a tight victory over Blue.

Unfortunately the silverware stopped there for Exeter with the remaining teams going down in the finals however this was not to overshadow a great day for the club.

Exeter Yellow, superbly led by Charlie Morgan comfortably made it through to the shield final where unfortunately lost out 5-3 to Bristol in an entertaining game.

There were some fantastic all Exeter affairs as well, most noticeably Exeter Pink v Red in the plate semi-final. The first year dominated pink team pushed the more experienced Red side all the way which ended up 6-6 in normal time. Both sides then experienced their first encounter of drop-off touch which the Red’s took 7-6.

The Cup semi finals were played out by Exeter Green, Bath, Thames Valley Vikings and Loughborough and were arguably the most competitive we have seen at a university competition to date. Exeter registered their first victory over Bath in the semi final to set up a final clash against Loughborough.

The rest of the club and all other teams formed a large crowd to watch the spectacle, which was started with a minute’s silence for the recent Paris attacks. Unfortunately Exeter couldn’t make their early territorial advantage count going into half time 2-0 down. A much better second half performance however saw Exeter come right back into the game scoring 2 early tries. Exeter unfortunately continued to let in tries in return and simply gave themselves too much to do at 5-2 down with 10 minutes to play. A superb fightback in the last 5 minutes saw Exeter run in two more tries however it was too little too late as a well drilled and disciplined Loughborough side took the cup 5-4.

It was a fantastic day of University touch and the largest University touch tournament in the UK to date. It was really positive to see so many first year students perform so well which bodes well for the remainder of the season. We head up to Bristol in February which will undoubtedly be another good day for the club.