Being the host of this year’s inter-college Varsities Games, Griffith College was bestowed with the responsibility of organising and managing the organisation team for the inter-college varsities basketball games. This year’s varsities started on Friday the 5th of April and ended on Sunday the 7th of April. The turn out during the matches was overwhelming – The Circular sent a reporter to cover the weekend and we got a chance to speak to the head organiser of the event Paul Wash who is the manager of the Student Unions at Griffith College, Dublin. Although Paul was as busy as bee over the weekend, he took time to have a quick chat with our reporter.
We asked Paul if they anticipated the turn out which they received over the weekend and he said,
“Varsities is one of the biggest events of the year for college basketball students, so we were expecting good number throughout the weekend”.
The numbers were reflected with court sides being full of players and supporters there to support their college teams from all around Ireland. With over 400 students taking part from 36 different teams it made the task of organising an event of that scale much more challenging.
“It takes a lot of planning, so the actual event itself went okay. They were long days but because of the work that was put in before the tournament was enough the weekend itself was quite stress-free. In the build-up trying to arrange the gift bags, get programmes to the printers on time, arranging table officials and physios while waiting on other people to supply information before deadlines were probably the most stressful part”
– said Paul when asked what the most stressful part of being the host for the Varsity Games.
There were two divisions which were played Division A and Division B. The Women’s Division B was won by University College Dublin (UCD) who played against Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT). University College Dublin won with the score 63 (UCD) to 53 (LYIT). The women’s Division A was won Trinity College Dublin (TCD) who played against Dublin City University (DCU). Trinity College won with a score of 70 (TCD) to 64 (DCU).
The guys Divison B was won by University of Limerick (UL) Basketball team beating Maynooth University (MU) with the score of 87 (UL) to 69 (MU) retaining their title from last year as champions of Division B. The guys Division A was won by Dublin Business School (DBS) who beat National University of Ireland Galway’s (NUIG) with the score of 76 (DBS) to 68 (NUIG).
Before leaving we asked Paul if he would consider this weekend a success and he said
“ Yes, the students that took part had a great weekend and the fact that so many of them said this to us was the proof that it was a success”.
