I understand Exeter and Loughborough regard the national league side as their first XV.

So the league must be below level 4.

But as both as safe, the Saturday players might have turned out.

This final is Level 3 standard.  Exeter Uni beat Plymouth Albion in pre season for instance and would probably win Nat.2 west with their Bucs team.

Wow! That's some statement. Don't think it's accurate, particularly when winter arrives.

IMHO, University teams should not be included within the National league system.

I, and others I know, work hard to raise funds to support the Club we follow and, we resent having our taxes used to support University teams in the National Leagues.

Bit late, I know, but it on the website https://bucs.tv/home/videos/vzgE04qYN2ry8gUJBC5c" rel="nofollow - https://bucs.tv/home/videos/vzgE04qYN2ry8gUJBC5c

Live games are on Wednesday and times vary, but maybe something to remember for next season.

Some of the Super Rugby second XVs play in National League 2.

The 1st teams play a fabulous standard. 

There is a difference in quality over the season between the sides that field professional academy players that are doing a degree as well and those that seem to be mostly made up of outstanding recent schools players (many of whom would have been in the academy system but made it as far). Whilst the stronger squads inevitably rise to the top over the course of the year there have been many instances where a team with virtually no professional club signed up players have upset one of the big boys. I can only recommend watching the games as they generally w

don’t interfere with following club rugby. 

From the outside it seems a pretty honest League as the players and DoRs would all know and would call out any shenanigans fielding non-students. 

The competition to stay in the top tier is as fierce as the press to get into it. Promotion and Relegation has created a lively structure. No ring-fencing there.

The crowds are vocal and magnificent (keep in mind I’m speaking as a National 1 supporter) though I imagine a lot of that is down to amazingly low beer prices (especially at Durham).

Agree with all of that. The first-team rugby at the top level is frighteningly good, and made up of academy rejects and people who were never even on the books to start with. My own old university, Exeter, have a *very* good first XV who I wouldn't like to see play Moseley.

It's another triumph of rugby in England - while the structure has been mucked around with endlessly the university system/leagues have quietly built themselves back up in standard almost to 1960s levels - and they've done all this without anyone really noticing. I'm not sure if it's a sad indictment of the RFU or club rugby or both, but if you support a team in level 3 or below, there are multiple universities whose sides of genuine bona fide students could do your team a mischief. A wire diagram of English rugby should show Super Rugby pretty much alongside National 1/2 IMO.

Which should be food for thought on a number of levels.

The one fabulous thing about level 4 reorganization was never having to visit Loughborough University again.

I hated every single thing about the experience, but especially the boorish, Huckleberryly Pearen, childish supporters.

Here here!

Totally agree. On my last visit to Loughborough the language used by the student supporters towards the away support was terrible.

There is no Club, a couple of old boys and a young student president tried to provide hospitality to the visiting committee but once the game started we were targeted for childish abuse. 

2 to go Brunel were 24:20 up but camped on their own tryline. Curfc the gave aaway a couple of pens in quick succession leading to a 5m line out for Brunel at the other end which they scored from.

The women's game obv has a lot to teach the boys at BUCS level

I went to dozens  of games at Loughborough , some of them to support Ealing but mostly to watch my eldest son play for Loughborough. I never heard any excessive bad language or goading of opposition supporters. It is a University that produces and develops more players than any club I know of. The Premiership , Championship and National One leagues are littered with ex Loughborough Players. 

I always enjoyed my experiences at the club bar the ground and after match experience.

As I've already said in this thread, I'm hugely supportive of university rugby - but that 'produces and develops' is a hoary old problem isn't it. 

I'd be interested in how many ex-Loughborough players are lighting up the Premiership, Championship and National One who'd never picked up a rugby ball before they went to Loughborough*.

Or is it more (as to be fair Loughborough has always been, and Exeter is becoming now), that people who want to play rugby at university apply to them? 

Develops? Obviously. Produces? From scratch? Or takes on the products of other clubs/schools in the main?

*I know such people are out there - Lewis Bean, now of Glasgow, was one. He'd never picked up a rugby ball, got into his battalion team, stood out enough there to play for the Army, then went to Moseley. Pretty stratospheric rise from a standing start. But if Loughborough (or any other university) are routinely producing large numbers of top-three-tiers rugby players out the back end that weren't rugby players going in at 18-19 then that's worth knowing/trying to understand. 

If you go with 'golden thread' arguments possibly, but I'd argue it's not a continuous story with back then. 

When I was there 20-odd years ago sport (aside from rowing) was pretty moribund. What they've done at Exeter (and again this is after my day so I'm making no claims about myself) is increasingly pulling together some of the brightest people in the country, who happen to be able to play rugby. At the turn of the century it was basically just for budding PE teachers. Not that there's anything wrong with PE teachers, but the side now might be rather more embryo army officers, management consultants, and doctors. There is, rightly or wrongly, a category difference between then and now.