2015 Men's Varsity
Oxford 52 - 38 Cambridge 
Report by Kris Johannsson
Oxford were favourites coming into the 2015 Varsity match considering our perplexing performance at BUCS; which saw us beat the winners Ulster, but lose to Strathclyde, Durham and even Warwick 3rds. Oxford were in the fortunate position of having most of their best players remaining from last year, whereas by comparison we had the difficult task of finding eight new players to replace the likes of Drew, Yiannis and Tarun. Although a third place finish for our first team in the inaugural East of England Championships and a second place finish for our second team in the Shield competition, meant we entered the Varsity match confident of producing an upset. The first half of matches did not start well, as I missed an easy black and lost 3-0 rapidly to Paul Allen. In an unsurprisingly tactical affair it was Oxford's captain that prevailed 2-1 in the battle of the Adam's. Joe Sturge managed to keep the scores close at 10-8, which represented an improvement on the 12-6 deficit in the previous year. With the pertinent question being whether the second half of our line up could repeat last year's annihilation of Oxford? Unfortunately the answer to that was negative. The first four games of the second half saw Oxford win 2-1 for three of them, with only Phil securing a 2-1 victory. Zhihao and Lewis were superb in fighting back to ensure we tied the second half and kept the deficit down to two frames. The doubles have never been a strength for Cambridge and unfortunately this year was to prove no different. The Christ's pairing of Joe Sturge and Phil Durkin, as well as the experienced pairing of Niall Murphy and Ben Jarett both prevailed 2-1. The pairing of the pool and snooker captains managed to create plenty of chances, but unfortunately entirely unable to take any of them (particularly in the case of the former). Both Robinson pairings lost 2-1, but a superb clearance by Zhihao secured a 2-1 victory and ensured that we still remained in the contest with the score of 29-25 in Oxford's favour at the end of the first day. Having always started sessions badly and then come back to stay in contention, it was vital that we did not continue to start in such a lacklustre fashion on Sunday. Fortunately, we did not repeat the formula of the previous day, however unfortunately we contrived to play poorly throughout. Only Sam Troughton managed to prevail in the first half winning 2-1, though it could so easily have been 3-0. Brett Noden and Adam Eales both faced difficult opponents and despite their best efforts ended up losing 2-1. Oxford's Chris Yates was determined not to repeat his 3-0 loss in the first round and managed to triumph 3-0 against Niall Murphy. After being frustrated by Chris Speller's tactical nous and clinical potting, Dan Kent decided to break dish to ensure that he picked up the final frame in his 2-1 defeat. After the first half performance on Sunday, it required a miracle comeback to retain Varsity and unfortunately it did not materialise. In a cruel twist of fate, the frame that secured Oxford the win came against Joe Sturge, in the only singles frame that he lost. Thomas Brouwer and Ben Jarrett did both manage to secure victories, but unfortunately it was too little too late.| FULL RESULTS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxford |
Cambridge |
||||||
| Saturday singles 19-17 |
3 | Paul Allen | 3 | v | 0 | Kris Johannsson | 0 |
| 5 | Adam Smith | 2 | v | 1 | Adam Eales | 1 | |
| 5 | Chris Yates | 0 | v | 3 | Joe Sturge | 4 | |
| 7 | Chris Speller | 2 | v | 1 | Niall Murphy | 5 | |
| 8 | Matt Kennedy | 1 | v | 2 | Thomas Brouwer | 7 | |
| 10 | Alex Pappas | 2 | v | 1 | Ben Jarrett | 8 | |
| 11 | Sam Bentham | 1 | v | 2 | Philip Durkin | 10 | |
| 13 | Alex Gregory-Allen | 2 | v | 1 | Brett Noden | 11 | |
| 15 | Sam Hale | 2 | v | 1 | Daniel Kent | 12 | |
| 17 | Alex White | 2 | v | 1 | Sam Troughton | 13 | |
| 18 | Ben Green | 1 | v | 2 | Zhihao Cui | 15 | |
| 19 | Charlie Grover | 1 | v | 2 | Lewis Beresford | 17 | |
| Saturday doubles 10-8 |
21 | Matt and Sam H | 2 | v | 1 | Brett and Sam | 18 |
| 22 | Adam and Chris Y | 1 | v | 2 | Thomas and Zhihao | 20 | |
| 24 | Alex W and Alex P | 2 | v | 1 | Adam and Daniel | 21 | |
| 25 | Paul and Sam B | 1 | v | 2 | Joe and Philip | 23 | |
| 26 | Chris S and Charlie | 1 | v | 2 | Niall and Ben | 25 | |
| 29 | Ben and Alex G | 3 | v | 0 | Kris and Lewis | 25 | |
| Sunday singles 23-13 |
31 | Paul Allen | 2 | v | 1 | Brett Noden | 26 |
| 33 | Adam Smith | 2 | v | 1 | Adam Eales | 27 | |
| 36 | Chris Yates | 3 | v | 0 | Niall Murphy | 27 | |
| 38 | Chris Speller | 2 | v | 1 | Daniel Kent | 28 | |
| 40 | Alex Pappas | 2 | v | 1 | Lewis Beresford | 29 | |
| 41 | Sam Bentham | 1 | v | 2 | Sam Troughton | 31 | |
| 44 | Alex Gregory-Allen | 3 | v | 0 | Philip Durkin | 31 | |
| 47 | Sam Hale | 3 | v | 0 | Zhihao Cui | 31 | |
| 48 | Matt Kennedy | 1 | v | 2 | Ben Jarrett | 33 | |
| 49 | Alex White | 1 | v | 2 | Thomas Brouwer | 35 | |
| 50 | Ben Green | 1 | v | 2 | Joe Sturge | 37 | |
| 52 | Charlie Grover | 2 | v | 1 | Kris Johannsson | 38 | |
| 52 | v | 38 | |||||
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