New boys Nottingham take giant leap towards BUCS Super Rugby survival
By Cameron Stephens
Newly-promoted Nottingham took an enormous step towards ensuring their BUCS Super Rugby survival as they moved 13 points clear of the bottom after thumping BSR heavyweights Cardiff Met 46-14 at Highfields.
The hosts raced out to a stunning 31-0 half-time lead and secured the four try bonus-point inside just 25 minutes before rounding off their seven-try rout with two scores in the second half.
Head of performance Paul Westgate, who formerly assisted the Spanish National team, described the bonus-point win as their most complete performance of the season and expressed the enormity of the 32-point drubbing going into the final stretch of the competition.
He said: “Today is going to fill us with massive confidence, it’s not often you put nearly 50 points on a BSR heavyweight like Cardiff Met.
“Cardiff Met are one of the established BUCS Super Rugby sides and when we played them down there, we felt that it was almost men against boys, they were very strong.
“We had a great win against Loughborough just over a week ago, we came down to earth against Durham so we needed a big, big performance.”
The Green and Gold have now won two from three in the new year after suffering an eight-game losing streak to finish 2022 and sit just two points adrift of eighth-placed Swansea for the final playoff spot with five games left in the season.
However, despite forming a 13-point buffer from rock-bottom Leeds Beckett, Westgate admitted that his side aren’t out of the woods and won’t allow complacency to creep in.
“It’s never over until the fat lady sings, and she’s not singing yet!” Westgate cordially said.
“I’ve been coaching for over 30 years, and you never ever count your chickens.
“Leeds Beckett have been in BUCS Super Rugby since it started and they’re not going to give up their BSR status easily.
“What we have to do is just focus on what we can control and just keep the Green and Gold wagon moving forward.”
The last-placed side in the competition will have to endure a playoff fixture against the winner of a subsequent playoff tie between the winners of North A and South A.
This is Nottingham’s inaugural season in BUCS Super Rugby after beating Northumbria in last year’s playoff final and they’ve prioritised bringing with their attack-minded, ambitious style of rugby to a league littered with kick-heavy and set-piece-led attacking outfits.
Westgate further insisted that his side aren’t just here to make up the numbers and that their pre-season aspiration was to fight for a playoff spot, an aspiration that inched ever closer after last night.
However, the focus undoubtedly remains on protecting their topflight status and securing survival despite the prospect of a playoff place looming and to do that, Westgate conveyed that his side must piggyback off their momentum.
He said: “The key is going to be to maintain the momentum, believe in ourselves and dare I say keep playing the way we are playing.
“You survive in your first year, then build on that with the players you got and the new players coming in.
“We were billed as the new kids on the block, but I think very much now we deserve to be up there with the established sides.”
Next week, Nottingham will make the 200-mile journey down to Exeter in their varsity clash against the reigning champions before playing Bath, Cardiff, Hartpury, and Swansea to round out their first BUCS Super Rugby season.