The University of Ulster Men's Volleyball Team have successfully defended the Irish Volleyball Intervarsities Title they won last year in Galway, UUJ defeating the University of Limerick by three sets to two in the final in front of a packed audience in Dublin.

It was the first sets that UUJ had lost during the three-day tournament being hosted by UCD.

On Day 1 UU defeated IT Carlow, IT Tallaght and the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) to finish top of their group and qualify for the group stages of the cup competition on Day 2 where they met local rivals Queen's University Belfast and hosts UCD.

The UU team dispatched both teams 2-0 in the best of three set matches to finish top of their pool again and set up a semi-final match between the winners of a cup play off match between 3rd placed UCD and RCSI who finished second in the other cup group behind Limerick.

On Day 3 RCSI and QUB won the morning's cup play off matches to progress to the semi-finals to meet UU and Limerick. Limerick defeated QUB 2-0 as did UUJ with RCSI whom they had already defeated on Day 1.

The men's final between the UU team and Limerick went back and forth with the UU team winning the 1st set and Limerick winning the 2nd. UUJ went ahead in the match again winning the 3rd set but squandered a lead of 21-16 to lose the fourth set and set up a tense deciding 5th set to 15 points.

The UU players by this stage were extremely tired but UU graduate Nick Wright - himself a member of last year's winning team - managed to get them in the right frame of mind as UU stormed ahead 7-0, but then allowed Limerick to come back.

But UUJ captain Alan Workman, in his last Intervarsities, led the scoring to finish off the set 15-11 and the match 3-2 UUJ's setter Mark Fulton who last week was named as a University of Ulster Sports Scholar was awarded best setter in the tournament and Queen's David Hamilton, a Great Britain senior International was awarded best hitter.

In the women's competition UCD defeated Dublin City University (DCU) 3-0 to win their sixth straight title.

UU won the women's plate competition and after the tournament team coach Nick Wright said: "Our women’s team is looking really good for the future with all our players in only their first year at the University.

"The men's team is also looking very strong, although we are losing Alan Workman after many years service to the team we will be hoping to bring in even more young players as UU are now reaping the benefits of years of development in the schools' game in Northern Ireland".

"This win is our second straight men's title, and is a testament to the University’s dedication to high performance sport and to all the hard work the players have put in this year. Our focus is now back to the All-Ireland league for our team as we are sitting joint top with DCU and Aer Lingus Jets and playing Aer Lingus this Sunday in Dublin".

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young