Team Sunderland men’s rugby: On the brink of an historic double.
Written by Morgan Jameson on 27th February 2025
Team Sunderland men’s rugby president ‘fancies’ his team’s chances of back-to-back cup victories after their Northern Conference shield semi-final win.
Team Sunderland Rugby’s previous cup final win 2024. Image Credit; Dean Edmundson
After successfully dismantling Leeds Trinity 67-12, – thanks to Hat-tricks from Ethan Sutcliffe, Dean Edmundson and Michael Holder – Harvey Allen, Team President, is looking to win the cup for the second season in a row.
He said: “It’s definitely an achievement that we can potentially go and do this back to back after so many years of trying and failing.
“It’ll mean a lot for the lads, especially some of the old-boys who have been there for two-three years, who’ve not won anything and now can go and do it again, twice.”
Michael Precious, Team captain, added similar praise on his team saying: “I’m hugely proud of the boys, we put in a massive shift in training every week and we’ve delivered some great results on the back of that.
Everyone’s confident for the final this year, we have some good opposition but we deserve to be here and we play for each other, I’d play alongside these boys against anybody.”
Speaking on the future of Sunderland’s rugby team, Precious added: “We are due for some departures but hopefully the success we’ve had will encourage new students to sign up and give the sport ago.”
Devrim Koca (Left) Captain, Michael Precious (Right) Image credit; Team Sunderland
The mens’ rugby team missed out on the league by one point last season, but with the team currently sitting second with a game in hand over first-place University of Leeds (UoL) 4ths, a potential league and cup double is still on the cards.
Speaking on this, Allen said: “We beat UoL in their final game of the season, leaving us two points behind them, needing to beat Leeds Trinity to win the league.
“We won the University’s team of the year at Sportsball last year, we won the cup and nearly won the league, our way to do better would be to do the double.”
The Northern Conference shield final will be held on March 5th in Manchester against UoL.
