Image: Karen Watson/Rugby Australia. UQ's Shenae Ciesiolka in action
27 August 2018

The University of Queensland has continued its Aon Uni 7s Series dominance, claiming the opening round of the 2018 season in Hobart.

Team UQ beat Macquarie University 19-5 in the gold medal match to maintain its streak of winning every Uni 7s tournament since the competition’s inception in 2017.

UQ’s Grand Final victory followed a 21-7 loss to Macquarie in the pool stages.

UQ coach Reg Tayler praised his side for its resilience following its first Uni 7s defeat.

“We went down to Macquarie in our pool round, but we learnt a lot from that and it was great to come back in the final and really step it up,” Tayler said.

“We just looked at a few things defensively – we weren’t happy with a few things we did wrong.

“We’ve got some high standards in the program so we fixed that.”

Team UQ’s path to the gold medal match followed a Semi Final win over Griffith University (29-0), and Pool A victories over University of Tasmania (39-5), The University of Melbourne (46-0) and The University of Adelaide (31-5).

Haj Mosby crossed for five tries across the two-day tournament, while Shenae Ciesiolka scored four five-pointers for UQ.

Tayler said he expected an improved showing when the competition resumes in Canberra.

“We’ve had the loss and got that monkey off our back, but we were just happy to get the job done and we’ll be looking forward to Canberra and trying to do the same thing.”

“We’ll look at our preparation, we’ll look at how our combinations work together so that we can be more effective in those pool rounds.”

Round 2 of the Uni 7s Series will be hosted by the University of Canberra from 8-9 September.

2018 Aon Uni 7s Series – Round 1 Results

Pool A:

UQ dft. University of Tasmania (39-5)

UQ dft. University of Tasmania (39-5)

Macquarie University dft. UQ (21-7)

Macquarie University dft. UQ (21-7)

Semi Final:

Macquarie University dft. UQ (21-7)

Grand Final:

UQ dft. Macquarie University (19-5)

Series Standings

  1. The University of Queensland (20 points)
  2. Macquarie University (18)
  3. Griffith University (16)
  4. The University of Sydney (14)
  5. University of Canberra (12)
  6. University of Tasmania (10)
  7. The University of Adelaide (8)
  8. Bond University (6)
  9. University of New England (4)
  10. The University of Melbourne (2)

Series Fixtures

Round 2 – University of Canberra, Canberra (September 8-9)

Round 3 – The University of Queensland, UQ Sport Athletics Centre (September 22-23)

Round 4 – Bond University, Gold Coast (October 6-7)

Round 5 – The University of Adelaide, Adelaide (October 20-21)

Image above left: Karen Watson/Rugby Australia

Media: Jamie Mitchell, UQ Sport, JamieM@uqsport.com.au0423 785 752; Reg Tayler, UQ Rugby Football Club, regtayler@uqrugbyclub.com, 0407 302 911.