CLUB OF THE WEEK
EXETER UNIVERSITY
Founded: 1860 (as St Luke’s College)
Colours: Green and white
Director of Rugby: Keith Fleming
Coaches: Rich Hodges, Haydyn Thomas
Club Captain: Matt Cook
Home ground: Topsham and on occasions Sandy Park
Honours:
Middlesex Sevens winners: 1957, 1969
Devon Cup winners: 1969, 1970, 1975, 1981, 2022
UAU/BUCS Champions: 2001, 2003, 2016, 2022
Tribute Devon 2 Champions: 2011–12
Tribute Devon 1 Champions: 2012–13
Tribute Cornwall/Devon Champions: 2013–14
Tribute Western Counties West Champions: 2016–17
South West 1 (East vs West) promotion play-off winner: 2017–18
South West Premier champions: 2022
Women’s BUCS champions: 2018, 2019
BUCS Super Rugby, league winners: 2018, 2019
Notable former players: John Morgan, Dan Devereux, Gareth Griffiths, Glyn John, Ray Williams, Courtney Meredith, Gareth Williams, Barney Jones, Dai Rees, Derek Main, Brian Sparks, Keith Maddocks, Brian Price, Graham Hodgson, John Uzzell, Howard Norris, David Burcher, John Bevan, Jeff Young, Martin Underwood, Don Rutherford, Mike Davies, John Scott, Mike Rafter, Jeff Squire, Mike Slemen, Peter Knight, Neil Bennett, Derek Wyatt, David Sole, Richard Hill, Rob Ackerman, Frank Wilson, Lasha Jaiani (Georgia), Peter Horton (Australia), Henry Slade, Sam Skinner, Tom Lawday, Sam Maunder, Richard Capstick, Christ Tshiunza, Daffyd Jenkins (the latter two are still at the university), and many others.
Did you know? Exeter’s successful 2022 BUCS campaign was the subject of a three-part documentary ‘No tomorrow’, made by the club. It’s rather good and available on Youtube.
The success laden story of St Luke’s College/Exeter University has two distinct phases. Firstly, the lengthy period, starting with their first match against Exeter GS in 1860, that St Luke’s was a small standalone sports-orientated college and then the period from the end of the 1977-78 season onwards when it became fully incorporated within the much larger Exeter University.
There have been a few bumps along the way, the transition wasn’t always the easiest, but both incarnations have proved remarkably successful with Exeter a powerhouse team in the BUCS Super League, indeed they are the current champions, while they also enjoy a close and mutually beneficial relationship with Exeter Chiefs.
There isn’t enough room to compile and exhaustive roll of honour for all their past stars but we will do our best while at the same time remembering that some of their lesser lights as players have become invaluable coaches at every level throughout Britain and indeed the world.
There have been many great St Luke’s/Exeter teams too but there are a few that demand highlighting, not least the class of 1953-54 which was captained by Mike Macho and included the one man army that was Lions hooker Bryn Meredith in the front row.
With the mighty Meredith to the fore, St Luke’s won 36 of their regular season games, scoring over 1,000 points with just a 3-3 draw at Bridgwater spoiling their perfect record.
It was a feature of St Luke’s rugby for many years – and certainly around this period – that their fixture list was centred on senior clubs with just the odd game against a fellow PE College such as St Paul’s Cheltenham and then, famously, Loughborough. They didn’t really do the University circuit. with national service prevalent until 1958 the age and physical maturity of the intake was slightly older than in many subsequent years.
Meredith was just one of many talented Welsh rugby players such as John Morgan, Dan Devereux, Gareth Griffiths, Glyn John and Ray Williams who enjoyed three, sometimes four years, in Exeter and ‘sunny’ Devon.
Many of them already boasted first class experience back in Wales and most of them were prospective teachers, ready to be unleashed on the rugby world. Williams, who won three Welsh caps, became a PE teacher at Gwendraeth Grammar School where he mentored and inspired a youngster called Barry John.
And it wasn’t just St Luke’s who benefitted from the Welsh invasion. Devon, who had last won the County Championship in 1912, suddenly became a power in the land again in the County Championship, reaching the final in 1956 when they lost a dramatic final to a star studded Middlesex side and then winning the competition outright in 1957 with a superb win in the final over favourites Yorkshire.
There was a big St Luke’s influence in both campaigns with the likes of Gareth Williams, Barney Jones, Dai Rees, Derek Main and Wales flanker Brian Sparks.
The latter, who had already played for Neath and worked as a policeman when he arrived at St Luke’s, was a superb athlete who was being tipped for a 1959 Lions tour place when he shocked the rugby world and turned professional with Halifax RL where he moved to pursue his teaching career at Exley Modern in Halifax.
His going-away present at St Luke’s was to captain the side to their first-ever Middlesex Sevens title at Twickenham in 1957 when they beat London Welsh 18-5 in the final. It would be difficult to think of a more dominant season for the students.
Having said that, the next time they won the Middlesex Sevens, in 1969, was pretty special as well. During the regular season, they lost only six of their 35 games in a schedule that had strengthened noticeably from 1954 and 1957 and then they produced an afternoon of high quality sevens to win at Twickenham coming from behind to beat Edinburgh Wanderers 21-16 in a cracking final.
Ray Codd – a consummate performer, future Rosslyn Park skipper and one of the best ever uncapped England players – captained the side which included a flyer with startling pace in Peter Knight who played for England in their win over the Springboks in 1972 and the cleverest of ball playing forwards in John Vaughan who enjoyed a distinguished senior career in that great London Welsh team of the 70s.
But we are racing ahead a little and missing several golden eras and intakes. The late 50s and early 60s were boom times and needed to be with an ever-strengthening fixture list which saw quality games both in midweek and on Saturdays. The Welsh well of talent seemed endless – Brian Price, Graham Hodgson, John Uzzell and Howard Norris to mention just four luminaries – but there were some major English players to throw into the mix as well. In short succession St Luke’s provided stepping stones to three of the great coaching and visionary minds of English rugby.
England full-back Don Rutherford was to become the first director of rugby at the RFU and one of his most inspired appointments was former Luke’s contemporary Mike Davis, a mighty England lock, who first coached England Schools to a couple of Grand Slams and then took over at senior level in 1979.
Within a year he had masterminded a first England Five Nations Grand Slam in 23 years.
Underwood, the most talented of wings during his time as a Luke’s between 1958 and 1961.
He moved to Northampton after leaving Exeter and played for Saints before returning to the Exeter club where he won the last of his five England caps, being forced to retire at the age of just 23 with a serious knee injury.
That setback catapulted him into a marathon 40 years teaching career at St Luke’s during which it is estimated that over 3,000 future teachers learnt at his feet while his 17-year spell as First XV coach spawned 35 internationals and seven British and Irish Lions.
During his time at St Luke’s, Underwood produced a definitive coaching manual Better Rugby which is now in its sixth edition and a follow up entitled Even Better Rugby. He was shortlisted to coach the 1971
Lions and, although missing out to Carwyn James, the Welsh maestro met up with Underwood on a number of occasions before the tour to repeat the benefit of Underwood’s wisdom.
Davis, who died earlier this year, gave a fascinating insight into life at Luke’s when recounting how he was listening to lunchtime news in his room in 1963 when he heard of his recall to the England team to play Scotland that Saturday.
On Friday morning it was time to get the train from Exeter to Richmond arriving just in time for a late lunch when, impoverished and starving student that he was, he ate for three men and looked forward to an afternoon snooze.
He was only the travelling reserve, there was no prospect of him playing. A knock on the door, it was Tom Pargetter the England lock appeared. He was going down with tonsilitis and would have to cry off. Davis was to start the game. Davis immediately took to his bed to catch up on some sleep. That’s how it rolled back then.
More recently, Exeter won the UAU final in 2001 and again in 2004 when a young Rob Baxter, not long retired as a player with Exeter Chiefs, started to cut his coaching teeth at the university.
With the demise of the UAU competitions, Exeter then became a powerhouse team in the splendid BUCS Super Rugby league which is taking University rugby to a new level.
Off the back of winning the final BUCS Championship before the competition became known as “Super Rugby” as James Doe brought home the spoils with a dropped goal, they finished runners-up in the inaugural season, 2016-17.
The following year they won the regular season League competition in 2018, when Sam Skinner and Tom Lawday were to the fore during an unbeaten season which they finished off in style with an exciting 21-19 win over Loughborough.
Exeter’s men again took regular season honours in 2019, in a period where the Women’s club had also won back-to-back Women’s Championships, before finishing as regular season runners-up in 2020 and again last season when the action resumed after Covid.
For a while, the ultimate play-off title eluded them, but not this year, when they turned the table on regular season winners Durham and won a hard fought final 14-13, Josh Barton slotting a vital late conversion after lock Daffyd Jenkins has forced his way over. Ironically, both sides had produced an avalanche of free flowing rugby and try scoring all season but when the silverware was up for grabs it proved a much closer affair.
The Exeter team last season was notable for its all-round strength and competence rather than any individual brilliance but two players made the BUCS’ all-stars team, Jenkins and full-back Dan John.
Featured Image credit: BUCS
