Loughborough set the early pace in University NTS North

Loughborough had a perfect start to their University National Touch Series North campaign with an unbeaten Round 1 in Manchester.

Loughborough’s first team began and ended the day in the same fashion, beating Leeds University’s first team in comprehensive fashion, lifting the Cup title in the process.

The Uni NTS’s new format of having northern and southern tournaments allowed Leeds to enter two teams for the first time, and after the initial setback against Loughborough they went on to beat Cambridge, Birmingham and Durham 2s en route to the semi-finals.

The other semi-finalists were Durham 1 and Nottingham Trent, who both won three of their pool matches and drew the game against each other.

Durham 1 and Nottingham Trent then came up against one another in the 3rd/4th place play-off, which the Midlanders edged by just one try.

Elsewhere Edinburgh turned an indifferent morning – one win and three losses – into a productive afternoon by beating Birmingham and then Cambridge in the Plate semi-finals and final, both by scores of three tries to two.

Attention turns this coming weekend to the southern teams, who will lock horns at Oxford RFC on Saturday, November 13th, with the northern teams reconvening at West Park Leeds RFC for Round 2 on Saturday, November 27th.

CLICK HERE to see all the results.