Playing at Twickenham, the home of England Rugby, might be daunting for some but Cardiff Metropolitan skipper Emily Underwood admitted it was her side's ability to deal with the pressure than ensured she ended her university career by lifting the BUCS Rugby Championship title.

Underwood skippered the side at Twickenham as Cardiff Met saw off the challenge of Northumbria University and cruised to a 20-5 victory.

Two tries in either half did the damage for Cardiff Met as they took a 20-0 lead before their opponents finally got themselves on the board.

But there were no signs of a comeback as Cardiff Met eased to the title and gave Underwood a dream send off.

“I’m so proud to lead the team to the title,” she said. “I’ve been proud all season and it’s an absolute honour because they are an amazing group of girls and we have really built a family.

“This is my last year, I graduate this year but we have set a standard now for next year and I am absolutely buzzing to go out on a high.

“It’s absolutely amazing to play at Twickenham, I’m lucky enough to have played here for three years and to captain in my last year it is just incredible.

“The atmosphere is amazing and to play at any international rugby stadium is going to be amazing but this is another level to that.

“We won in my fresher year, lost out to Gloucester last year but we rebuilt and have come back to smash it this time around so it’s a real dream come true.”

Cardiff Met took the lead early in the first half as Eli Norkett found some space down the right and broke a tackle before crashing over the whitewash – Joanne Jones off target with the conversion.

It was all Cardiff Met in the early exchanges and they extended their lead after 19 minutes as Olivia Archer burst clear on the left and crossed unopposed.

Northumbria held on until the interval but two minutes after the restart they were further behind as Cerys Ballett dotted down for a 15-0 lead.

Norkett all-but sealed the win two minutes later with her second score of the match but Northumbria did manage to get on the board with 16 minutes remaining thanks to Alice Sandham.

“We started strong,” added Underwood. “We slowed down a little but then came out raring to go in the second half and really played well and deserved the win.

“They put up a good fight but we used our shape and structure and got the points we needed to score the points.

“The early try settled us and that helped us to relax and we kicked on from then and never rested on our laurels.”

British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the national governing body for Higher Education (HE) sport in the UK, organising leagues and competitions for more than 150 institutions across 52 different sports. Partnered by Deloitte, BUCS supports athletes from a grass roots level through to Commonwealth and Olympic Games hopefuls www.bucs.org.uk