Swans 25 Deeping Devils 0

Buckingham Swans 25 Deeping Devils 0
2 November 2014

The Swans faced an unknown quantity in Deeping Devils having never previously encountered the recently promoted side from Lincolnshire and the first 15 minutes suggested it was going to be another tight battle as play never really got any further than between the two 10 metre lines.

The breakthrough came though when a touchline kick saw the play move into the opposition 22. The home side, as in their previous match, were once again strong in the line out, and on safely securing the ball the pack surged forward 15 metres to take them over the try line giving scrum half Bec Bray the simple task of grounding the ball.

This was the catalyst to kick start the Swans game as although it took another 10 minutes to add to the score, the home side looked solid and organised in defence, with right winger Becky Pearson snubbing out the Devils most likely source of return putting in several quality tackles on the potentially dangerous Deeping left winger. And with full back Holly Malins once again in tremendous form the result never looked in doubt after she collected the ball on the half way line went one way into the centre of the field past a couple of defenders before cutting back out to the left past several other helpless opposition to score what was to be the first of a fine hat-trick.

Malins quickly followed this up with her second as good hands through the backs allowed her to loop onto the end creating an overlap and enough space to go over to give a half time score of 15 – 0.

The Swans started the second half where they left off the first, with most of the possession, helped as ever by the tenacious play of openside flanker Kirsty Haig, who cleared up and stole most loose ball, and the gain line breaking runs of blindside flanker Emily Barker and second row Kat Cook.

As the pressure and intensity of the Buckingham attack increased Deeping started to lose players to injury and with no replacements available had to play with reduced numbers for most of the second half. Buckingham however were in no mood to sympathise having been in a similar position on more than one occasion already this season and capitalised when a copy of their first try was repeated 13 minutes into the second half. Haig again took a lineout ball cleanly enabling the forwards to set up a rolling maul over the try line, with Bray again on hand to double her personal tally. Unfortunately for the visitors in her failed attempt to prevent Bray grounding the ball the Deeping player sustained a serious injury and a lengthy stoppage ensued as medical attention and then a change of pitch followed.

As the referee was only prepared to allow the game to continue if Buckingham dropped a player, the match continued with 14 v 12. With plenty of space on the pitch now Buckingham really should have sealed the bonus point win rather sooner however some hesitation and wrong decisions meant that this was not achieved until Malins topped her performance with her third try.

Had the game been allowed to run the full 80 the likelihood was the score would have been considerably more, however with less than 20 minutes remaining a further Deeping player appeared injured and the game was abandoned, but as more than 60 minutes had elapsed the score stood at 25-0 which moves the Swans up to third in the league.

Players of the match were Kirsty Haig in the forwards and Holly Malins in the backs.