The famous Oxford vs Cambridge Varsity Match is taking place this weekend, as the UK’s two leading Universities collide at Twickenham Stadium. The matches are rich in history, with the women’s and men’s scholars both battling it out at the home of English rugby.
Oxford Universities’ Women’s Rugby Head Coach Ricky Khan, is excited to lead his side out on the monumental occasion. He has plentiful coaching experience, but has never witnessed the 80,000 capacity Twickenham Stadium. Joining up with Oxford University after a year in Richmond with Championship club London Scottish, Khan is used to being a stones-throw away from Twickenham, and can’t wait for his side to take centre stage.
“Yeah, I’m nervous but nervous in a good way to do it. Because of all the years I’ve been coaching. Obviously, it’s the first time going to Twickenham as a coach tried to do a few times through the county stuff, but didn’t quite manage to make that. But yeah, it’s massively exciting. It’s just a bit of a new challenge, really.”
“So this opportunity came around, and it was just something different. And I thought ‘why not, let’s give it a go.’ It’s a different direction for me. I’ve never coached women’s rugby before, and so the carrot of being able to coach at Twickenham was quite large. And obviously, it’s Oxford University as well. It’s quite prestigious, not just the institution, but namely in rugby as well. As far as the non professional side of the game, Oxford still carries quite a lot of history, And especially into the varsity.”
The Women’s Varsity Match first took place 10th March 1988 at Iffley Road, Oxford. Oxford Women have been the stronger side throughout history, as they lead their ‘Ox-Bridge’ rivals by 21 wins to 13, with just one draw in 35 meetings.
The match moved to Twickenham Stadium in a historic progression for Women’s rugby, ahead of the 2015 Rugby World Cup on home soil. The match is a definitive highlight in the women’s rugby calendar, has been the opening fixture of the day’s action ever-since. Always a competitive match, the 2016 encounter was the closest-possible result, as Oxford won 3-0 after a single penalty divided the two teams.
Oxford’s Women’s side have been successful in more recent history, with Khan discussing their run of form this season ahead of the showpiece match. However, coming from a league rugby environment, Khan recognised the importance of success in their division, which Oxford have been reaping the rewards of this past campaign.
“So we’re staying at the stadium on Friday night. And then obviously in prep for the game where first up at midday, and then the men’s game is at three o’clock. But we have a bit of a different season to the men’s because although the men play competitive fixtures, they don’t actually play in the BUCS (British University & Colleges Sport) leagues, whereas we do.
“So we’re in the BUCS Championship South, and we finished second in our division this year. And we had I think it was six or seven wins to three losses, something like that, which is the best sort of results the club had in the women’s section since before 2011.”
“So that was one of our objectives that myself and Lee Goodall who’s the forwards coach set. (For) the University or the squads, the main thing is varsity, everyone knows that that’s the biggest game of the year.”
“The irony is we actually play Cambridge twice in our league as well, before we actually have them at Twickenham, not a lot of people know that. And we managed to win both those fixtures. So we, beat them quite heavily at their place 48-12 I think, but only just beat them 17-10 at ours. So two sort of quite contrasting results really.”
Oxford’s Women’s team is a decorated squad of Allianz Premier 15s stars and England Red Roses hopefuls. This match at Twickenham may be some of the players’ first of many matches at ‘HQ’, with immense potential from one to 15. Khan discussed the players for fans to keep an eye on for the future, and those who are breaking into the top flight squads already.
“We’ve got some players who have been in around the Premier 15s. We’ve got Sophie Shams, who’s currently at Saracens so she’s a squad member there. We’ve got Alex Wilkinson, who was part of the Wasps’ Premier 15 side, she’s now playing at Henley Hawkes in the championship. And she was also in England U18s last year.
“We have got Manon Johns as well. But unfortunately, she’s been ruled out, she had a concussion, she’s at Bristol Bears and with Wales, and she’ll be a big loss for us. But outside of those players, we’ve got some strong players who’ve played Varsity before.
“So Chloe-Marie Hawley our 10, Lauren Webb, our captain, she got a player of the match at the last Varsity. So I’d say the spine of a squad is quite strong. Now number eight, is a girl called Sarah Skinner. She’s part of the US Naval Academy. And so is over here doing s masters. And you know, she’s just an excellent player. So the spine of the team, as you would call it, we have got some real good talent within the side.”
At Oxford University, rugby and rowing are the ‘blue ribbon’ sports that dominate the varsity buzz. This weekend, the ‘Ox-Bridge’ boat race will also take place, as the teams skull along the river Thames, for the all important victory.
However, despite being local celebrities on campus, the Oxford University rugby stars don’t receive any special treatment. The ‘student’s first’ mentality generates a high work ethic and rugby ethos, as the scholars have to balance exhausting hours of studying with rugby training and gym sessions. Khan believes that this reflects the dedicated strengths of his committed team.
“The two main flagship sports at the university definitely are the rowing and rugby union. In fact, so our game is on Saturday, then on Sunday is the actual boat race, as well. So I think we’ve tried to do it so that the two events actually sit on the same weekend as well.”
“Having come from a professional rugby environment to this, Oxford are very much ‘students first’. They’re lawyers, they’re doctors, they are proper scholars, their doing the real proper degrees. They have to go to tutorials.
“But they know it’s a commitment. So some players do find it hard because they are doing very, very hard degrees. But also we do treat them as professional as we can do, they’re expected to be at training, they’re expected to do their gym.
“And as a squad to be fair, they work very, very hard to make sure that they do go to the Blues Performance Centre, which is like the big sports centre, we’ve got there in Oxford, our strength and conditioning coach Duncan Bennett, he’ll put them through various gym programmes through the year.”
Khan highlighted his team’s captain Lauren Webb, as a driving force for his side’s success. He recognises how impactful Webb is, and that she motivates her squad to get to training, and put in the hard yards.
“We’ve had a massive buy in from our players and it is driven a lot from our captain, Lauren Webb. She’s very, very good leader. And she set her stall out quite early on what the expectations were if you want to play for Oxford University and get a blue, these are the minimum standards or this is the minimum level you need to reach.”
“So we have got a really good disciplined squad. But the culture this year, I believe, has been a lot better than than previous years. Just from what the players are saying themselves. Again, they’ve you know, collectively as coaches and players, I think we’ve all been singing off the same hymn sheet, which really helps.”
As Khan mentioned, the Oxford v Cambridge Women’s Rugby Varsity Match is kicking off at mid-day this Saturday 25th of March. This is lining up to be another memorable year at the pinnacle of University sport, with the women’s match creating a definite buzz around Twickenham Stadium.