LBS women's rugby team wins MBA World Cup

LBS beats all-comers to claim victory for the second successive year

London Business School’s (LBS) Women’s Touch Rugby Club (WTRC) has won the MBA World Cup in Danville, Virginia, after kicking its rivals into touch. 

Two teams of students from LBS took on their peers from other business schools – Wharton, Ivey, Yale, Smurfit, Cornell and Columbia – in a two-day event organised by Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. 

The LBS blue and red teams, led by WTRC co-captains Kirsty Packer and Stefanie Zipf, played each other in a match that the former won. The blue team remained undefeated during the tournament, lifting the World Cup for the second consecutive year.

“It was amazing to win but there was definitely a sense of relief,” Packer said. “We were under pressure, having won the tournament last year.

“We were confident in our ability to win and I knew our girls had the skills, but the competition was fierce and we had a fight on our hands. It was great to see all the hard work that they put into training over the last year pay off.”

Claudia Yasukawa, president of the WTRC, added: “The LBS women’s club is known for dominating the competition at Duke in recent years, so we wanted to make sure we did it again.”

After facing each other in a hard-fought game, players from LBS’s red and blue teams cheered each other on during the competition. “Our motto is ‘one team, one dream’,” Yasukawa said. “We all pulled together to make sure LBS won.”

The LBS women’s teams also supported their male counterparts, who competed in the men’s competition. They then celebrated at the official tournament after-party, held at Duke, with teams from other business schools. 

Winning is important but it’s not the main reason for joining the WTRC, a club with more than 100 members, according to Packer. “We train three to four times a week, which is a great way to meet people across LBS,” she said. 

Yasukawa added: “It’s not just about playing rugby; we have social events, provide mentoring and help people prepare for job interviews. Being a member of this club is about teamwork and getting involved, which we saw at the MBA World Cup – the pinnacle event for the WTRC. 

"The ladies spent a year mastering the game and their hard work has been rewarded with World Cup glory in a tight competition.”