| The U18 team trekked down to Dorset on 13th Jan for a friendly
game against Wimbourne. We’ve met the team before but only at 10’s and sevens in
tournaments, and never won. The day started with the discovery that their referee
had contracted the gastro bug, norovirus in the night and that there were no
alternatives. Also their club pitches are close to river level and we had to de-camp
to a local school. Still after some arm twisting we found a ref and our very own
Tony Hilbourne assisted him from the touch. It was blowing a gale along the pitch
and Reading, winning the toss, sensibly elected to play with the wind. |
| For 15mins there was no score and we seemed to have the upper hand
although didn’t make use of the wind at our backs. Then the Reading teamed seemed
to get rattled by a few robust sessions on the ground and lost shape and more
importantly ball badly in loose play during the second part of the first half
ending up a disappointing 22-0 down at half time. |
| More composed in the second half but now with the wind in our faces we
at last went over after a trademark footballing display from Archer who dribbled
the ball over then scored. Edwards was able to convert across the wind to give us
the 7. Wimbourne responded in kind but the conversion was unsuccessful and then
Reading were unlucky to have a second try (Millar) disallowed for dropping in
the grounding. Wimbourne bagged a try under the posts but again the conversion
failed. Reading got another try in the closing minutes scored by Hilbourne
looping round the centres as at last we were finding width. This too was
converted. |
| So 32-14 final score to Wimbourne, a fair result in that the Reading
squad didn’t use the wind to their advantage in the first half and gave away too
much on the deck to a determined Wimbourne pack. We also never really tested the
outside Wimbourne backs defensively. Still, this is a good fixture for us and it
is the sort of team that we should be looking to beat as we improve in the area of
ball control in ruck and maul. To that end we have enlisted a guest Coach, none
other than England player Maggie Alphonsi to give our girls a masterclass
session at the Jan16th training session. We look forward to meeting
Wimbourne again in the 10’s, 7’s and hopefully for a return match in April. |
| After the game, the ref came to commend our players on their play
and nominated Millar as his player of the match. Other notable play was the
team’s tackling performance, especially from Field, Fidler, Byrne, Newport |
| Squad: : Lambden, Owen, Hunt E, Hunt C, Shorey, Byrne, Field, Millar, Archer, Hilbourne, Gough, Keyohane(Capt), Edwards, Newport, Fidler.
|
| Tries: Archer, Hilbourne - Conversions: Edwards (2)
|