Michaelmas Varsity matches: A preview

Cambridge will be hoping to build on last year’s comprehensive sporting triumphs.

Forty-eight Varsity victories were secured out of the eighty-nine available. The first fourteen of the new year up for grabs this Michaelmas. The first Varsity match of the new year has already gone the way of the Light Blues. The horseracing team beat Oxford on the 10th October.

It’s revenge on the minds of the men’s Rugby Union team, as they look to reverse a worrying trend that has seen Oxford win the last five encounters at Twickenham. Jamie Roberts, fresh from his World Cup disappointment with Wales, will add some class to the centres. The Rugby League side will be hoping for a similar turnaround in fortune from recent events when they run out this time around. Last year’s 42 – 0 defeat was the latest in a winless run that stretches back to 2009, the final four games of which haven’t seen a Cambridge try.

Roberts, who will study at Queens’, has 78 international caps.

The Women’s Blues teams will make history when they take to the field at Twickenham, on the same day as the men. Hopes are high they can repeat their 47-0 mauling of Oxford. Oxford. The American football team are also looking to build on last year. Their 16-0 victory in 2014 wil hopefully provide the Cambridge Pythons with the confidence to match the result in just a few weeks’ time. Similarly comfortable wins last year for the men’s rugby fives outfit (300-23), both men’s and women’s real tennis sides ( 6-0 and 4-2 respectively), the cycling teams and the women’s cross-country runners, mean there are high hopes all round for crushing victories in the coming months.

The Cambridge University Pythons celebrate last year’s Varsity win.

The men’s cross-country team, female fives players and archers (who narrowly lost 3340-3459 in 2014) will be aiming to join the list by the time we throw aside our books and head to Val Thorens in December. There we hope the ski and snowboard teams can pick up where they left off last year (with wins for both the men’s and women’s teams) to keep the bragging rights when, among the Oxonian mass, they’re most needed.

The Tab would like to wish all Light Blues the best of luck in their Varsity matches.

GDBO.