On Sunday night at Vincent’s Club, Captain Hazel Ellender announced her squad to face Cambridge in the 31st Women’s Varsity Match at Twickenam on Thursday 12th December, kick off 11.30am. She has fortunate to be able to name ten former Blues in her starting XV with a further two on the bench.
It will be the second time this season that Oxford and Cambridge have met and the Light Blues lead 1-0 after winning the BUCS Premier South match 23-5 at Grange Road on 3 November.
“It was a tough loss to Cambridge at Grange Road. We knew it was going to be a difficult trip and we were missing a few key players,” said Ellender. “Training has been far more intense since then and that defeat gave us added incentive. We took a couple of days afterwards to reflect on it and I asked my players to remember just how awful it feels to lose to Cambridge. I’ve lost two Varsity Matches at Twickenham and I don’t want to feel that again.”
Tickets are still available, please contact the OURFC office at ourfc@sport.ox.ac.uk or 01865 432000 to secure yours.
Starting XV:
1 Hazel Ellender * (St Cross) 2 Ann Bidgood * (University) Jessica Abele * (Exeter) 4 Katie Collis * (Lincoln) 5 Carla Schmidt (New) 6 Ailsa Clark (Worcester) 7 Phoebe Haste * (Trinity) 8 Hannah Cooper * (Worcester) 9 Sile Johnson (St Hugh’s) 10 Pat Metcalfe-Jones * (Christ Church) 11 Helen Potts * (New) 12 Nina Jenkins (Keble) 13 Abby D’Cruz * (Keble) 14 Clodagh Holmes (University) 15 Connie HUrton * (Pembroke)
Replacements:
16 Ruby James (Worcester) 17 Shekinah Opara * (Keble) 18 Esme Haywood (Brasenose) 19 Meryem Arik (Somerville) 20 Emily Cohen (Jesus) 21 Zoe Nunn (St Catherine’s) 22 Megan Carter * (Lincoln) 23 Maddie Hindson (Keble)
* Denotes Blue