UK Student Archery Association

Bath survive Swansea charge [15/Jul/09]

Results from the last two SWWU legs are in, with Swansea winning both matches at both senior and novice level comfortably. Bath finished second senior and novice team in both matches. The first match was held at Swansea on a St George/Albion/Windsor and the second was extracted from the BUCS Outdoor champs scores.

With Bath having won the season's first three senior SWWU matches, Swansea were always reliant on Exeter doing them a favour. Swansea did cut the deficit down to one point but were unable to overhaul Bath who picked up their fifth SWWU senior title, with 13 points ahead of Swansea's 12 - or effectively three wins to two, with Exeter trailing in third. Despite having come perilously close in the last two years, Swansea have yet to win the SWWU league title. In eight years of SWWU competition, Bath have recorded five titles and with Exeter winning the other three.

In the equivalent novice matches however, after the first three SWWU matches Bath were only up two wins to one. Here, the two victories for Swansea carried the Welsh side to the novice league title, 13 points to 12 - a reversal of the senior table. This novice league championship is Swansea's first SWWU title and a fitting end to a colourful season which has seen Swansea emphatically win promotion to ELeague Division 2 and host BUTC 2009, but just miss out on top 10 finishes at the two BUCS championships.

SWWU is by far the smallest of the five regional leagues with only the three teams, Bath, Exeter and Swansea currently competing. Southampton were in SWWU until the 2005/06 season when they jumped across to SEAL. Also in the SWWU area are Plymouth and Aberystwyth, but neither of these sides have taken part in a full SWWU program. If anyone from either of those clubs is reading - please get in touch! Jess Bucknor (Exeter) was SWWU organiser for 2008/09, but no announcement has yet been made regarding the position in 2009/10.