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Southampton take URNU sports title

10 April 2017
Southampton University Royal Naval Unit (URNU) took the title of the best sporting unit during the annual URNU tournament held in Portsmouth.

The 15 URNUs gathered for the two-day event which aims to give the students the chance to meet and engage in some friendly competition. 

The teams included representatives from Devon, the newest URNU, as well as two teams from Scotland, who had both travelled 400 miles by road to take part.

This year’s tournament included the normal sports of rugby, hockey, netball and bucket-ball along with two new events in the form of swimming and a relay race, in place of sailing and football. 

Roll on next year.

Officer Cadet William Mathewson

The keenly contested rugby element of the competition was played this year on a knock-out basis.

Officer Cadet William Mathewson, from the Edinburgh URNU, said:   “Much talk surrounded the supposedly best rugby team, Wales, with Edinburgh, arguably the second best.

“Edinburgh put up a stiff fight, but were unfortunately not victorious, narrowly losing by three tries to two. In the end, after a solid showing from all teams, Southampton came away as rugby champions.”

Southampton also won the hockey tournament, while in the swimming Glasgow rose to the top, despite questionable strokes from some members of certain units.

After a fancy-dress social organised by the Glasgow URNU, the sport started the next day with a win for Southampton in bucket-ball. 

However the Hampshire team seemed to let their guard down in the netball, which allowed Liverpool to snatch the win.

Edinburgh set an incredible pace in the 8 x 400 metre dash relay race, which kept them in the running for first place after the first and second heats. 

However it was not to be for the Scottish team.  Bristol ran through to win beating Edinburgh into third place by just six seconds.

The tournament finished with Southampton in first place and Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow and Wales filling the other top five places.  

In the middle orders were Devon, Sussex, Northumbria, Liverpool, Cambridge and Manchester.  Yorkshire, Edinburgh, London and Oxford made up the bottom four.

Officer Cadet Mathewson said:  “Overall, it was yet again a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

“Many thanks to Manchester & Salford URNU for their great work in organising the event, as well as Glasgow & Strathclyde URNU for organising the social.

“Roll on next year.”

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