From: airdg@castle.ed.ac.uk (Richard Grey)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey.field
Subject: University Hockey in Australia and Scotland
Date: 13 Sep 92 19:20:41 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University


	As I wish to embark on a Masters degree in Australia,
	I would be most grateful if somebody down under 
	(hey ! how about you Steven at Curtin UoT ???)
	could please email me, or better still post to the net 
	to create some interesting traffic, details about the
	state of University hockey in Australia.

	By this I mean, what are the best playing Universities,
	and third level eduaction institutions, apart from the 
	AIS (!!), and how many teams do they have, international
	players provide etc etc.

	Here in Scotland, the University of Edinburgh is, and has
	been tops for the last ten years. We have two main
	inter-universities tournaments, the league (played
	on the usual home and away basis) and the Scottish
	Universities Tournament played over two days for outdoor,
	and one indoor tournament.

	In these, Edinburgh University has won the league for
	(apparently) the last eight seasons in a row, without
	EVER losing a match ! Some record heh ? As for the 
	S.U.T. last year (1992) was the first time we lost the
	title in six years, having held it previously for the
	last five. In this, we lost the semi-final to Heriot
	Watt University (Edinburgh) on penalty flicks, and they
	then lost to Dundee University, also on p.flicks.

	Unfortunately, the standard in Edinburgh seems to be
	dropping slightly. Four seasons ago we were in the
	National (Scottish) League Division 1 (the top flight) in
	its inagural year, yet were unfortunately relegated.
	The next year we missed promotion from Div 2 by 2 points
	due to lack of enthusiasm. Since then, we have further
	dropped to Nat Div 3, although we are still the highest 
	Univeristy League team, all the other Scottish Universities 
	being in National 4, 5 & 6.

	The main difficulty with the University team (and not
	just ours) is that we begin our season each year in
	October, while the non-uni teams begin early September.
	This is difficult for us in that other teams are fitter
	and more practised, and know each other better. Each
	year we lose the 4th years, and gain unknown freshers
	(1st years). Other teams are generally localised and so
	have the summer months to train together pre-season,
	unlike students who are off galavanting around the world,
	or gone home to places usually hundreds of miles away
	from the University location.

	Another problem is the attraction of recognised hockey
	playing students to play for their University. Obviously
	for Uni teams in leagues 3 and lower, trying to get a
	student of that Uni to play, who is of class quality, is
	very difficult when they can walk straight into a top
	flight 1st XI team. Because this happens, those who
	choose to further their hockey playing in higher leagues,
	are not selected to play for their uni in the uni
	leagues, although many desire to do so. (This is the
	case in Edinburgh Uni, but not others - and we still
	manage to beat other uni teams loaded with "class"
	players !!).

	It would be interesting to hear other peoples views
	from around the world.

Richard.
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