London Scottish Girls Rugby squad have been training hard since the start of the season in conjunction with our partner club Old Emanuel.
The competitive element of the season has yet to kick off for the girls but they have been getting in some valuable game time over the last couple of weeks. On 8th October both the U13 team and the U15 team played training games against their counterparts from Wimbledon RFC. Our girls performed strongly in both age groups and demonstrated good skills and strong running and had the better of the scoring although actual score lines were not kept as training games. Feedback from players and parents alike was of positive progression and also of the benefits from having spent some time training with our more experienced U18 team players.
This last Sunday, 15th October, all three age groups travelled to Dartfordians RFC in Kent for a series of friendlies. Again both the U13 and U15 teams held joint training sessions with their hosts followed by training games. Playing against stronger and perhaps better prepared opposition than the previous week the girls again showed their capabilities and were more than able to hold their own and were complimented by Dartfordians coaches for their attitude and friendliness in particular.
For the U18s this was meant to be a valuable preparation for upcoming cup games but we were robbed of players with both injury and unavailability and so ended up with 12 players on the day. Our host generously agreed to loan us girls to make up number and ensure game time and the game was played in three thirds for training purposes. Being the first outing this season for this team and with girls from last season having turned senior and other girls graduated up from U15s it was perhaps unsurprising that we got off to a slow and tentative start. However, a quick early try by Dartfordians seemed to jolt the more experienced players back to life and the team started to gel and function better such that we ended the first half 10-14 up, 2 tries each but only ours (from Gabby and Becca) converted by Morven.
Throughout the game our play with ball in hand was good and we moved the ball about to test the opposition but with Dartfordians rucking strongly we sometimes allowed ball carriers to be isolated. In defence we were not as well organised as we would have wanted but still managed to cope and not concede a try in the middle third of the game whilst scoring 3 more tries of our own one through Jasmine and 2 from Freya. Ending that period 10-29 in the lead.
In the final third of the match it’s fair to say a number of our players were tiring with no available subs and probably playing near to 15 minutes down to 14 players through a series of minor injuries requiring time on the side for players to recover before returning, so concentration and defence lapsed. As a result we conceded 3 tries during the period with only one of our own in reply with Freya getting her hat trick. Final score 25-34 to us but a fairly even contest with some good rugby played by both sides. Given our depleted team it was especially pleasing to see all the girls that have moved up from U15s getting stuck in and performing really well in their first game at this level.
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