Morgan boots Cardiff to epic win over top dogs Hartpury

THE BUCS Super Rugby season is starting to take shape nicely with Round 4 beginning to differentiate the runners and riders for this year’s title.

Leeds Beckett, carrying the unfamiliar prefix of ‘unbeaten’, swaggered into their first home game of the season against a Durham team licking their wounds from an Exeter education the week before.

Durham started promptly, notching an early three pointer, but Beckett responded with a try plus toppings to make it 7-3.

Durham produced a converted try and further burnished their total with a penalty to open up a six-point lead, but Beckett chipped back to 13-13 via the boot of Conor Lloyd.

Further penalties were exchanged but the Durham men had the eventual say, winning 19-16 to get their season back on track.

In a league that has had form and expectation turned on its head in recent weeks, the scenes in Hartpury still came as a shock.

Cardiff Met, who endured a torrid season last year, trumped the champions in their own backyard 22-15. Tom Morgan was the Archers hero, kicking 17 points to complement Tim Phillips’ late try.

Hartpury were thereabouts throughout but in the end had to settle for a losing bonus point and the alien sensation of inhabiting the BUCS basement flat alongside Nottingham Trent.

An hour away down the M5, another team on the ropes, Bath, hosted their Anniversary Game filling one side of a rainy Rec with 5,000 supporters.

The roof was raised in touching fashion pregame as a minute’s applause was observed for former club chairman George Stephenson, who recently lost his battle with cancer at just 24.

Prior to kick off coach Aaron James bemoaned his team’s lack of accuracy and it was, to his frustration to prove their undoing once more.

Loughborough raced into a six point lead thanks to man-of-thematch Owen Waters. Bath reverted to type and used forward power to catch and drive their way back into the game with a fired up Jack Davies emerging from the bottom with the ball.

Loughborough were not to be bullied and added seven points off their own rumble courtesy of Musa Yusuff, and when Charlie Kingham put Jack Moates away down the right, Bath were staring at a 20-5 deficit. But they had the talismanic Jack Davies to call upon. He was a man possessed, booting the ball into the air in celebration of his second, leaving the half time score 20-12.

Loughborough defended in muscular fashion for the last 40. Their endeavour plus a clutch of Blue and Gold knock ons and a misfiring lineout left them no chance. Their sloppiness was no match for the clinical finishing of their adversaries. Waters added a converted try and the game was done, 27-12 and four points for Loughborough.

The final fixture of the round was played out on Friday night at Kingston Park where new sensations Northumbria thrashed Nottingham Trent 32-7.

Tries from Mikey Newstead, Jake Rodgers, Josh Bragman and Henry Mawhood overwhelmed Trent in the first half with Rob Waldron’s reply proving scant consolation. With Exeter not in action this week, the men from the North go top in what is proving to be an unpredictable season.