Phoebe Jackson has set her heart on helping Cambridge University win a Varsity Match having overcome a number of forced hiatuses from rugby union.
The 25-year-old is studying a PhD in Antarctic glaciology at the Scott Polar Research Institute, having previously taken an MPhil in Polar Studies at SPRI.
Watching on from the stands as the Light Blues won last year’s Varsity Match fuelled the desire to taste success over Oxford, and you could say that Jackson has become accustomed to playing the waiting game.
She first picked up a rugby ball around the age of five, playing tag rugby, at Winchester Rugby Club.
“It was the classic scenario of the only girl on the team, and I then went up until a year of contact with the boys but it got to the point that I couldn’t play with the boys any more because it wasn’t safe,” says Jackson.
“At that time, women’s rugby just really wasn’t nearly as big as it is now so there just was nowhere for me to go.
“There was no girls’ team, particularly for under-12s age category, so then I stopped, picked completely different sports and didn’t come back to rugby until my undergraduate degree at Durham University.
“I actually started by taking a friend to go to try out college rugby and then she asked me how to tackle. I showed her and thought ‘this is fun’, as I’d forgotten how fun it was.
“I started playing for Durham, COVID hit, I got sent home and all sports, especially contact sport, got cut off so when I came back for my first full season of XVs, it was my third year.
“I came here for my master’s, that was my second season, and then this is my third season.”
In those intervening years away from rugby union, Jackson took up alternative pursuits.
The primary focus was tennis, but there was also athletics, with middle distance – 800m and 1,500m – on the track during the summer, and cross-country during the winter.
As is often the case, there are transferable skills, the obvious ones being the running from athletics and the hand-eye coordination from tennis, and then the not so obvious ones.
However, rugby is able to provide something that the other two cannot.
“Tennis is very strategic and it requires a lot of forward-thinking, and different scenarios which I think transfers over to rugby a lot,” explains Jackson.
“I think the biggest difference is that tennis is such an individual sport, whereas rugby is the team element.
“That was something that I really missed when I was at Durham, and I started out doing tennis. I saw the rugby girls and I just thought they had so much fun altogether, and they are playing for each other, whereas when I was doing tennis I was just playing for myself.
“I really value the team and the social element that comes with rugby. There is something about CURUFC. Anyone that I know who has been through CURUFC, it has made such an imprint on their social lives and I think the Old Girl community, so the alumni community of CURUFC, is such a family.
“The ever-lasting and long-lasting friendships that have come out of CURUFC are a testament to the team bonding that you get when you play for the team.
“It is like a team that never stops being a team.”
Having played in the 2023 Varsity Match, a 31-12 defeat, Jackson had a year out in 2024 so had to watch on from the stands as Cambridge clinched victory, and that has provided the extra motivation.
“It was amazing to watch the girls win last year, but a lot of the girls that played last year were my team-mates from the year before,” she says.
“To see them lift that trophy was obviously amazing, but it was bittersweet as well because I would have done anything to have still been a student last year and to play with them.
“They had an absolute stormer of a season, one of the best that CURUFC has had. I was cheering from the sidelines, but wished that I was on the team.”
Jackson adds: “I would love at some point in my four years of PhD to have a Varsity Match win. If it’s this year amazing, if it’s next year as well even better.”
