On Sunday 15th November London Scottish Girls Rugby had five girls representing Middlesex at the London and South East County Festival held in Reigate. The players involved were Fiona Kennedy (scrum half U18s), Gabby Spencer (No.8 U15s) Freya Aucken (Centre U15s), Morven Calway (Full Back U15s) and Becca Lawn (Second Row U15s).
The festival was contested by teams at U15 and U18 level from eight counties consisting of; Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire and Eastern Counties.
The U18s were drawn in a pool against Essex, Hertfordshire and Sussex.
The U15s pool opposition were the same counties as the U18s. First up were Essex and Middlesex came out quickly and Becca was able to go over for the first try of the game. However the remainder of the game was more difficult with a very large Essex pack causing difficulties for the Middlesex defence and the game ended up lost 12-5. Second game was Hertfordshire and the Middlesex girls were able to string together some good passages of play helped by their scrum dominating the opposition but the game remained tight. The only score for Middlesex was by Gabby and converted by Morven but Hertfordshire could only reply with an unconverted try so the game ended in a 7-5 win.
In the final pool game Sussex scored first through there super quick winger but Middlesex were again able to assert themselves in the scrum and use the possession that came their way to score 3 tries (including one each for Freya and Gabby) with 2 converted by Morven. Despite a late comeback from Sussex they held on to win 19-12. By virtue of other results in the pool this left Middlesex top and in the final against the winners of the other pool, Kent.
After a lengthy delay to starting the final the Middlesex girls were unfortunately no match for a more experienced Kent side and lost without being able to register a score. However the team had a great day and gelled well in their first outing together and were delighted to be presented their silver medals by Rocky Clark, England’s most capped woman and 2014 World Cup winner.
