Exiles Feature in British Universities Final

Brunel University took the honours in this year’s British Universities championship with 25-23 victory over St Mary’s College in a thrilling final played last week at Twickenham

The culmination of the British Universities Rugby season came at the national stadium at Twickenham on Wednesday past, with Brunel University triumphing over St Mary’s College by 25 points to 23, in a tremendously exciting final to a season which runs from October to March.

For Brunel, Keith Pyper (Exiles U21 & ex-Methodist College Belfast) opened the scoring with a try. The crucial try before half-time, to give Brunel a 20-10 lead, was scored by current Ireland U21 squad member, lock Michael McCarthy. They were ably assisted by lock Kevin Burke (Exiles U19/21) and scrum-half Kevin Brennan (London Irish). One player to lose out was scrum-half Robbie Shaw, as he was in Italy with the Ireland FIRA squad.

For St Mary’s, their second half fight-back was inspired by the line-out work of Christian Short (Exiles U21), aided by captain Russell Carr (Exiles U21), hooker Justin Lewis (Exiles U21), and supported in the squad by John Coffey (Terenure College) & Mark Cream (St Andrews Dublin).

>The Exiles feature was strengthened by the fact that the St Mary’s Coach was Ray Hennessy – of Exiles & Leinster fame – who also played for Brunel in their 1995 winning Championship side, alongside British & Irish Lion Richard Hill. The Brunel Coach, Corin Palmer, is now the London Irish Academy Director.