Simon Shutler reports on Herts Barbarians heroics in the National Cup:
On Sunday 12 girls travelled from all over the East region to play for a Herts. Barbarians team in the Southern finals of the National Cup at Petersfield RFC. Five teams had players represented; Diss, Letchworth, Saracens, Tabard and Wymondham.
In the first game the team played against Cramberleigh from Surrey and in a very close contest two great breaks by Charlotte (Diss) twice put the Barbarians in front, but Cramberleigh pulled back and in a nail biting finish the Barbarians scored what would be the winning try, before Cramberleigh came back from the kick-off to pressurise the try line. The girls threw everything into try line defence to hold out for a win 15-10.
Unfortunately the game probably took too much out of the girls, and with no substitutes a very tired team took to the field after a short break to play Ellingham & Ringwood. With many girls playing out of position a well drilled team, with abundant pace out wide punished every error. The girls fought hard but were outflanked on a number of occasions and finally lost 43-0.
After another short break they played Thornbury. They looked more like the team in the first game again. Probably down to the wine gums provided by Sam's mum! Unfortunately two missed tackles left us trailing 3 tries to 1 at half time. With the girls again playing better it looked like they could get back into the game. But with Sydnie down injured Thornbury went on to score. That was the last Sydnie was able to play in the game and with no substitutes the girls played on with 11 players. Being 1 player short Thornbury were able to exploit the overlap advantage to seal victory and win the Southern place.
For the girls to come together and play as well as they did, without ever training together is testament to their skills. Many had never played games at this level and intensity before and their tackling and work rate was phenomenal.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment