University rugby is set for a positive shake-up this season in a bid to heighten the level of the game. Alongside fellow members of the Student Rugby Football Union, the head of sport at Bristol University, Bob Reeves, has created the Augmented BUSA National Student League.

The new programme will run in conjunction with the existing BUSA league and will for the first time ever pit the best university teams in England against each other in a league format. Currently, as part of the Southern A section of the BUSA Premier League, Bristol, Bath, Brunel, St. Mary’s College (Twickenham) and Exeter University only play each other, but with the introduction of the new league they will also take on Northern A universities Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Loughborough, Birmingham and Nottingham.

However, in a bid to reduce spiralling costs, travelling and the number of games being played, the first games between two teams in the BUSA league will count as an additional result towards the National Student League. This then just leaves the universities in the south to play the universities in the north once. The games will generally be played at weekends.
“We have talked in the past about having a national league, but there have always been problems in implementing it because of the distances in travelling,” said Reeves. “However, we think we have now worked our way around that with the new National Student League. The idea of the league is to provide a really good competition for universities. It is a really neat way of getting the best teams playing each other without threatening the BUSA competition. This is the best solution for this season and we will see how it evolves after the first pilot season.”

And in a bid to match the high standard of rugby expected on the pitch, organisers of the new league are also going to great measures to ensure that match days will run as professionally. Reeves added, “We want to make sure that everything in this league is of a very high standard. We have decided that we want medical support at every game, which is not something compulsory in BUSA. The pitches must also be roped off and surrounded and the RFU will also appoint the referees. We are setting the best standards so that we can measure up against good level club rugby competition both on and off the field. This is our version of the Premiership.”