Third time lucky in the SRU Midlands Bowl Final has sent the Dundee University Medical Society RFC – or DUMs as they’re happy to be known – on the international pitch at Murrayfield for finals day on Silver Saturday.
Dundee’s youngest rugby club join Dundee High and Morgan FP as representatives of the city on Finals Day, and the first for almost a decade, but it’s been a marathon journey to get there.
This was the third successive year they’d reached the final of the regional bowl competition – effectively the quarter-finals of the National Bowl.
They lost to Blairgowrie in 2017 and then in the epic “Snow Bowl” match against their landlords, Panmure last year, both teams clearing several inches of snow off the Forthill pitch to get the game played on the “Beast From The East” weekend that wiped out all other rugby in Scotland.
However this year they fought their way back to the Bowl Final, again against Panmure, and prevailed with a handsome 39-19 victory. A victory over Glasgow Uni Medics in the semi-final has them in the opening game of finals day, taking on Aberdeenshire.
Panmure 24 Dundee Uni Medics 18: A heroic day by all in the Forthill snow
DUMs played in student developmental leagues until they joined the league structure in 2013, at the same time as regular university sides dropped out of league rugby. They won the Caledonia Midlands Division Three last year and had a solid campaign in Division Two, finishing fifth.
However cup rugby seems to be the main strength of the club, which is not affiliated to the University’s sports union but share resources and some players with the Dundee University team.
Still about 70 per cent of the team are medical students, with many having been the entire journey with the club since they entered the leagues.
Opponents Aberdeenshire are a league below DUMs in the league structure, but are rebounding from a spell in which the club almost folded due to lack of players and they had to pull out of National League rugby.
