In partnership with Old Emanuel Lionesses, the London Scottish Girls squad competed on Sunday April 26th in the Middlesex RFU St Georges Day Girls Rugby Festival held at Wasps Twyford Avenue ground.
The festival was based on 7-a-side event at U13s level and 10-a-side for the U15s.
The U15s we were hampered by recent injuries and school commitments which left us without a full team to start the day.
However, with sporting generosity we were loaned some girls from Basingstoke to supplement the squad.
A large number of entrants from a wide geographical area meant tough competition and the team lost both their pool games.
The first game was against Aylesford B’s who we knew to be well drilled and skilled from a friendly encounter with them earlier in the season.
The second game was against Herts BaaBaas who are a regular “cluster” team combining the best girls from Hertford and Old Albanians.
Our girls were not outclassed at all in either game and made the best of less than perfect circumstances but the greater familiarity of the opposition made the difference.
In the circumstances, the girls from both Scottish and Old Emanuel gave their very best and made real progress during the day.
Whilst we had had several joint training sessions to prepare for the festival, there is no substitute for playing together week in week out.
The U13s festival was a slightly different format with three other teams in our pool.
In our first game we lost to Chesham 3-4 but we should really have won were it not for handling errors in the first half which left us with a 1-3 deficit at half time which the girls came close to overturning.
The second game was also lost 5-7 against Basingstoke who were the strongest, best drilled team in the pool.
We were competitive against them but a few defensive errors too many were too much to come back from.
Our third game against Newark was won 10-1, which is a scoreline which does not do justice to a Newark side who tired but it left our girls smiling.
Only one win meant that we hadn’t qualified for the semis but had a consolation game against the 3rd team in the other pool which was Oxfordshire BaaBaas which we lost 1-4 having lost a bit of focus and concentration in the break between games.
Our positive statistic from the day – U13s aggregate – scored 19 tries – conceded 16 tries.
The teams were as follows;
U15s
Emily Adlam-Cook (OERFC)
Anne-Lise Cogoli-Bel (OERFC)
Grace Mansfield (OERFC)
Rebecca Oram (OERFC)
Ceri Beynon (LSFC)
Amy Hopkins (LSFC)
Immy Beagley (LSFC)
Olivia Fuller (LSFC)
Gabby Spencer (LSFC)
U13s
Morven Calway (LSFC)
Becca Lawn (LSFC)
Freya Aucken (LSFC)
Briony Coppin (LSFC)
Merle Brown (LSFC)
Jenna Cann (OERFC)
Polly Davies (OERFC)
Rebecca Newman (OERFC)
Rose Mansfield (OERFC)
Carys Williams (OERFC)
Isabella Roberts (OERFC)
– The Girls were scheduled to be participating in the Worthing RFC Girls 10s festival this Sunday, May 3 but have withdrawn due to injuries.
