UK Student Archery Association

NEUAL Indoors shapes the tables [06/Mar/25]

NEUAL's Indoor Championships were held on Sunday 16th February in Huddersfield. It counts as a round for the NEUAL tables, as does the BUCS Regional Qualifying. NEUAL clubs were split between Central Qualifying (MMU, Sat 15th Feb) and Northern Qualifying (Aberdeen, Sat 22nd Feb). Some clubs contested 2 NEUAL matches on consecutive days, whilst some shot 2 on consecutive weekends with the second one located some way outside of NEUAL's geography.

NEUAL scores from the BUCS Qualifiers are covered in the Qualifying for BUCS editorial earlier in the week.

The top teams NEUAL Indoors were not quite so close together as the BUCS leg when 34 points covered the top 5 - here it was 33 covering the top 3. Leeds successfully defended their NEUAL Indoors title from 12 months ago, with a total of 2214. Manchester continued their excellent season with second place on exactly 2200, with Keele taking third spot on 2181. Sheffield were fourth on 2145, a little way ahead of York (2112) and Liverpool (2095). The top 3 archers in the match were all called Will(iam). Top of the pile was Luddington (Sheffield) on 583, with Addison and Oakes (both Keele) on 580 and 576. Two more archers not called William broke 570, with Jack Wells (Sheffield) on 574 and Jake Patel (Leeds) one behind. Lucy Hawkins (Keele) and Kobe Pioquinto (Lancaster) were mid 560s. Manchester achieved 2200 with a single archer over 560 - an unusual feat, though Rafail Panagiotidis was only 1 point away.

In the novice match, Manchester and Liverpool were first and second at either end of the 1400s. Manchester's 1499 was powered by Qingyang Li and Shihui Chen on 543 and 533. Liverpool were second on 1407, with Sheffield not too far behind in third on 1378, with 532 from Nathan Haine.

In the unsighted match, Manchester again ran away with things, scoring 1569 to come close to a 200 point margin of victory. York, Liverpool and Newcastle were all high to mid 1300s. Wenze Jiang (Manchester) was top scorer in the match on 557 and came within 1 point of the All Unis record for gents barebow. Amazingly, Alexandra Langdon-Reich (Sheffield) who scored 456 in ladies longbow, also came within 1 point of the All Unis record.

See the current standings on the NEUAL 2024/25 page.

The effect of adding the BUCS Q and NEUAL Indoor scores within 9 days of each other means that narrative of the NEUAL season has started to take shape. In the senior table, despite not having won any of the individual legs, Manchester are top on 56 points and lead Lancaster by 2. Lancaster have won twice in three matches, but were seventh in the Indoor Champs leg. Two points behind Lancaster there are a trio of teams - Keele, Sheffield and Leeds - all on 52.

Manchester lead the novice table on 79 points out of 80. Liverpool are the only team left who are relatively close on 73 points, with York third on 65. Three of the four NEUAL novice matches have finished Manchester first and Liverpool second. The situation in the unsighted table is remarkably similar. Here, Manchester lead with 74 points. This time York (69) are second and Liverpool (65) are third.

Manchester are in a good position to win an unprecedented NEUAL treble, as they are top of the overall, novice and unsighted leagues. They have never won a NEUAL league title before, so it would be quite a spectacular way to start. No team has ever won all three NEUAL trophies in the same season, albeit that the unsighted league has only run for 2 and a bit seasons so far. Lancaster won the most recent of their three senior NEUAL titles in 2017. However the Red Roses won team medals at both BUCS Indoors and BUTC in 2024.

NEUAL match 2 is currently in progress. Some sections of the match have been shot, but it will not finish until Sun 23rd Mar. And there's a match 3 to come as well.