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Who da best?
Which of our sports teams plays at the highest standard?
By Hannah Dunning and Ifor Duncan
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With the University’s blue ribbon sides like Men’s Rugby Union, Football and Men’s and Women’s Hockey winning at Varsity, as well as a number of sides the early leaders in their BUCS leagues, LS Sport inevitably asks: Which of our sports teams plays at the highest standard?
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Consistency is the key
It is no surprise that the Big Debate addresses university sports this week especially because it is a key element in many student lives, whether watching or participating. There is, however, bound to be a wider interest in certain sports than others. In general, sports like archery do not gather as much interest as other sports - football, rugby union, hockey and netball receive the most interest within universities. Hockey would be the sport I would give as a definitive answer to the question of which sport is played at a higher level, particularly at Leeds University.
Leeds University is championed for having successful hockey teams. Everywhere you go in and around Leeds you are guaranteed to spot at least a few people carrying hockey sticks or with ‘Leeds University Hockey’ printed across their tracksuits. There is surely no coincidence that a sport that generates such participation is also played at a higher standard. First of all, without even considering the amount of teams that University of Leeds have for hockey, lets consider the amount of people that just turn up to the two day tryouts: over 100 people, of which only a minute number make it into any of the numerous teams. This kind of turn out shows the ever-growing interest in the sport and clearly represents the talent of the teams even if only a few people are making the cut.
Although such a small percentage of people actually get through trails, Leeds University men still have an outstanding six teams and the women are not far off with five. In comparison rugby union, for example, only play with three men’s teams and a solitary women’s team. Without detailing anything else about the two sports, this still clearly outlines the standard at which the hockey first teams are playing.
This in fact is proven in the BUCS leagues. Leeds University’s men have four teams playing in the top 3 leagues; the first team naturally being in the top league competing against the nation’s best sides, in Loughborough and Durham. Understandably this is achieved by many other university sports such as the men’s football team but they still don’t have the consistency throughout all of their teams.
Looking at the Varsity results over the years, hockey is one of the few teams, other than football and rugby, to actually win against Leeds Met. Nevertheless, unlike these other sides the uni’s hockey teams have been the most consistently successful. All the men’s teams have won consistently and two out of the three women’s teams share this impressive track record.
It is generally only during Varsity that uni’s rugby team gets the most of its attention, mainly due to the buildup of rivalry between the met and uni. Rugby Union has become the sport that has draws the most attention, mainly due to the tradition of students going to watch, even if they are not interested in the sport, but this does not mean that rugby is the sport played at the highest standard at Leeds.
Overall, Leeds University has numerous sports that are considered by many to be played at a high standard.
However, I side with hockey, for the most part because of the high standard at which all of their teams play at.
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Its all in the technique
For many students who will never play sport professionally, the highest standard they will ever reach is at university. For many sports that do not have professional, or fully professional, leagues in this country, such as Lacrosse or Hockey, university sport is the highest standard they may reach, unless they go abroad or play at regional, club or national level. This, perhaps, makes it hard to gauge these sports in a comparison with others played professionally.
Rugby Union is, obviously, played professionally in this country. Nevertheless, it is a sport that is played at a very high standard at university level. It is no coincidence that Rugby Union is the only sport at Varsity played at a professional arena in front of a paying audience.
It could be counter argued, however, that it is only because Rugby Union is a bigger sport than Hockey or Netball, in this country, that it can attract an audience that requires such a venue (not that Hockey and Netball weren’t well supported at Varsity).
This, nevertheless, does not detract from the assertion that Rugby Union is played at a closer level to professional sport than other sports, even if this is only in terms of venue.
A more approachable comparison to make between two sports is between Rugby Union and Football, the two best supported sports in the country. While the Men’s Football club has its first team currently top of the Premier Men’s North, the highest division in Men’s university football, and Rugby Union’s first team play in the Premier Men’s North B, the second tier, this does not mean that Football is played at a higher standard.
In my experience of covering university sport, Rugby Union as a sport played throughout BUCS, not just at this university, is played at a higher level. There are more youth internationals playing Rugby at universities than Football.
Football also suffers from the size and depth of the professional sport in this country, and the money involved, as players are scouted for clubs at an earlier age they are discouraged from pursuing an academic path.
Rugby Union, by contrast, has international level professionals like Jamie Roberts and Alun-wyn Jones doing part time degrees, even if they do not actually play for their universities. Josh Lewsey is a famous example of a graduate who went on to play at the highest level. He went to Bristol before becoming a world cup-winning fullback.
There is more potential for students to do a degree and then become professional at the highest international standard in Rugby than in Football. For example Leeds have two players who actually play for the university but who are also Scotland under twenty internationals.
This is reflected in how entertaining these sports are from a spectator’s point of view. Rugby Union in BUCS is played closer to a professiona standard than football.
One way of measuring the difference in standard is through looking at technique, while certain players stand out technically in both sports, Union, as a very specialist sport requires a higher level of technical proficiency to at least give the illusion of a professional standard.
This is particularly the case at the set piece, where the technique required for a safe and successful scrum contrasts with the technique involved in football, which is less specialised. Perhaps this is because the difference between rugby positions and football positions is broader, for example the difference between what is required from centre-half and a centre forward is not as a great as between a tighthead prop and a fly-half.
If you think your team is the best, let us know at sports@leedsstudent.org
This article was written by Hannah Dunning and Ifor Duncan and was uploaded at 5:42am, Friday 30th October 2009.
It was posted in Sport » Sport Big Debate » Who da best?