Scottish University Open Outdoor Regionals Preview

Rory Curran finishes off UKU University regionals with Scotland.

Scottish Uni Open Outdoor Regionals will have a different look and feel about it this year. With the introduction of a Women’s sanctioned event running along side the main BUCS open qualifier it’s unlikely many girls will feature in the main event (though they will be fighting for medals of their own). Another change is the introduction of upfront bad weather arrangements meaning teams will travel safe in the knowledge they will be settling nationals qualification one way or another, with most regionals in recent memory having been rained off, this is a luxury that those from the drier side of the country may take for granted. Another big change in Scottish Ultimate is the fact that Edinburgh, after at least a decade of top two finishes, are no longer considered to be part of the top two north of the border their demise has been likened to that of Manchester United, with some going as far as saying Man U and Ro Sham Bo alike are top Division material.

Edinburgh in the final last year, can they repeat? Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss.

UKU Uni Indoors BUCS Championship Review (Div 1)

Newly appointed University Coordinator Chris Bamford gives us his review of Uni Open Indoors Div 1 Nationals.

This weekend the Alan Higgs Centre in Coventry was the venue for the UKU University Indoor BUCS Championship. With 16 teams having fought their way through regional qualification all fancied their chances of making the top 8 and claiming BUCS points. The unpredictable nature of the tournament, with most teams having not played each other since nationals last year meant the 5 regional champions: Dundee, Manchester, Cambridge, Exeter and Sussex started as slight favourites with Dundee returning as defending champions.

Scottish Uni Women's Indoor Regionals

With Open regionals over we move to Women's. The UU committee have surveyed the Women's captains and Rory Curran, Glasgow (FarFlung) captain has written the preview for Scotland from this resource.

Scottish women’s teams have a very strong history of success at women’s indoor university nationals. Since the 2007-8 season a Scottish team has placed on the podium every single year, more impressive still in the same time period they have provided seven of the ten finalists, and even more impressive than that is the fact that those honours have been shared amongst no less than four teams. Most impressive however is the fact they cleaned up last year taking three of the top four with only the Irish (excluded this year) from the podium clean sweep. Clearly this weekend’s tournament will be a closely contested and high quality affair.

Dundee women much like there male counterparts will start the tournament as strong favourites.