In a week filled with many celebrations and sparse defeats, we’re brought to the final day of Varsity Canterbury 2018. In a tense day, the only sports left are Indoor Cricket over at St Lawrence, and the Rugby 1s looking to steal back the title from their defeat last year. InQuire headed down in the cold and rain in high spirits for the last games and to see Kent take the champion title of Varsity winners.

Indoor Cricket: KENT WIN!

Women’s 1s: KENT WIN!

99-2 : 73-5

Men’s 2s: KENT WIN!

59-2 : 53-5

Men’s 1s: KENT WIN!

83-4 : 65-6

Time: 1pm-4pm

Place: St Lawrence Cricket Ground

Women’s Rugby 1s: CCCU

Time: 5pm

Place: Canterbury Rugby Club

Final Score: 12-36

In treacherous conditions the UKC girls did themselves and the university proud! Despite playing a team a league or two above them, the spirit and determination of the UKC girls warmed the vocal crowd and impressed all those who braved the wind and the rain. The score quickly became 0-19, but prior to the restart the referee ordered the CCCU captain to speak to the unruly CCCU supporters who were making obscene comments from their section of the stand. After 29 minutes the score became 0-26 to CCCU, after an outside break from their centre. However, after 33 minutes the referee had justifiably lost his patience with the CCCU players who were frequently infringing and preventing UKC from playing their attacking and expansive game. This resulted in a yellow card for one CCCU player. After 34 minutes came a wonderfully worked try where the whole UKC pack pushed the CCCU pack backwards allowing room for a pick up from the UKC number 8 Lizzie Archibald, who broke to the blindside helped by others, and she went over for a superb try. Next came a sublime moment of the game when a fantastic drop goal conversion by Morwenna Trevena made the score 7-26. Such a magnificent effort sent a much needed morale boost. The score crept up to 7-36 after CCCU put UKC under concerted pressure, but UKC were made of stern stuff and fought back. This resulted in a well worked try for Christiana Balogun. The conversion was missed, and the final score was 12-36. All the UKC girls walked off the pitch with their heads held high after a very impressive performance in appalling conditions.

Written by Victoria Rees

Men’s Rugby 1s: CCCU

  Time: 7pm

Place: Canterbury Rugby Club

Final Score: 13-14

Team Kent fans showered out onto the pitchsides of Canterbury Rugby Club to support the Men’s Rugby 1s in their heated battle against CCCU to reclaim the title of Varsity winners after last year’s defeat. In a match constantly kept tense, with Kent following closely behind at all times, the weather didn’t settle and neither did the boys. Chanting and shouting from the sidelines was the soundtrack to the game, and even though Kent’s hopes were held high for the entire game, unfortunately the team couldn’t keep up with Christ Church, and lost with only one point between them. A great play from the UKC Men’s rugby.

Kent – 26, CCCU – 11

2018 has been a great year for Varsity, and you can see the highlights reported over InQuire’s website, as well as on KTV highlights and CSR’s radio shows commentating. Being documented on the Canterbury Varsity website, you can see a full set of scores of every single game. Starting with a heavy lead, Kent pushed their way to success, finishing every single day with points far ahead of CCCU. Unlike last year, where Christ Church slimmed the points between the two teams, Kent held the winning title every single day and snapped Varsity up from the very beginning. Well played to every single team that took part in this year’s Varsity and what a great year for Kent! There’s still this season’s BUCS matches left, so the competitiveness will not be stopping any time soon.

Congrats to Kent and a good effort to CCCU!