UEL’s Rugby team has gone from strength to strength over the past couple of years and their steady rise was exemplified by reaching a South Eastern Conference Plate Final and finishing in second place in the South Eastern 4B last season.
Club captain and committee member, Ross Skinner, has been part of the club for the past two years, captain since the end of the 2016/17 season, and missed some of last season after rupturing the ligaments holding the collar bone in place (grade 3 ACJ rupture) – the injury sustained when he covered the back row and ran into a tackle.
Ambitions and Recruitment
The scrum-half said: “Last season was successful for us, we had our aims – which we didn’t quite fully achieve – but we came second in the league and runners up in the cup.”
Every club at UEL has high aspirations and the Rugby club are no different. Despite the successes of last season Skinner believes more is achievable: “This year we’re trying to improve on that and hopefully take it to the stage, get the performance in the final and hopefully win the league and get promotion.”
Prior to the start of every season at UEL a massive recruitment campaign goes out from all the clubs and Skinner said: “Recruitment is massively important and that links with some of our other goals to build a club. We’re trying to get as many people involved from all levels of rugby – to just starting with our O2 Touch programme, all the way up to the people competing in the first team fighting for spots there.
“It’s been really good getting the boys in and we’ll be doing a number of events across all the campuses – which has resulted in a good intake of players. A lot of the boys know what they’re doing and it’s going to be a good year I think.”
With an influx of new talent, achieving the goals could prove to be a work in progress for the team, however Skinner maintains his confidence: “I think we’re definitely going to get a strong side out. Obviously you don’t really know the teams you’ll be facing, as much as we did play some of them last year – you never know what their intake is going to be.
“Ultimately we have got to try and set up the game we want to play and how we want to play it and deliver on that, to get to our goals and get some silverware in.”
Charity Work
The Rugby club are avid charity workers and this season have teamed up with the Campaign Against Living Miserably or CALM for short. Third year Sports Therapy Student Skinner gave Rising East an insight to why they are working with CALM and what he thinks can be achieved:
“This year we’ve basically joined up with CALM and what they do is they focus mainly on men’s mental health and the ideas that men and their ideals of masculinity [means they] won’t talk out about it,” he said.
“So, we’re basically trying to work with them to show that it’s okay to talk and it’s been something that we’re trying to do lots of events for this year – we’re going to do lots of things to promote them, we’ve got it all on our stash,” he continued, pointings at his Rugby kit.
“We’re working with them alongside our other sponsors Stoke Travel to do events in conjunction with both, getting a bit of funding towards doing something bigger and just raising awareness around campuses that it’s okay to talk and that being a man doesn’t mean you have to hide your emotions.”
Opening Fixture
The club have moved from their home field for this season, no longer playing games at East London Rugby Club, moving to play at Eton Manor RFC.
First up for them this season is Goldsmiths University on Wednesday and it’s a debut for the new home ground and some of the new recruits. Speaking on their preparation for the game Skinner stated: “Our big thing is we’re trying to get everybody, myself included, back up to match fitness, so it’s been a lot of cardio work – which the boys have been…we’ll say happy about,” he joked.
“It’s a big game for myself as well because that’s the team I got injured against last season. I’ve had surgery and I’ve done all my rehab. On a personal level I’m very keen put in a good performance against them, but training has been going well – we’ve had our coach back from last year, Aaron Low, he’s been putting the boys through their paces.
“We’re moving onto contact now and trying to get the players really up for the game shall we say” he concluded.
There is no doubt that UEL’s Rugby team will put in all the effort possible to achieve all the goals they have set themselves this season.
Skinner is full of confidence prior to the start of the season and it wouldn’t be surprising if his confidence rubs off on the rest of the team.