Didcot Ladies - in thrilling end to end action!

On Wednesday evening Didcot RUFC Ladies and coaches went to Oxford, to play in the Oxford O2 Touch League. Oxford have a strong squad including a number of international players and it was with some trepidation that Didcot approached the fixtures. There’s nothing wrong with stomach butterflies, you just have to get them to fly in formation!

First up was the Mixed Team game, which is a combination of the coaches (2 on the pitch at a time) and Ladies (4 on the pitch at any one time). They were playing ‘Mongrels’. Didcot put in a spirited performance and played an end to end game but Mongrels were very strong and put a number of tries on the board in both halves. Didcot did manage a consolation try late in the second half when Lee Massie intercepted a loose pass deep in Didcot territory. He had to run nearly the length of the pitch to dive into the left corner to score, to much cheering from the Didcot contingent!

Next up were the Didcot Ladies – no coach players – and they really showed how far they have progressed and improved since the leagues opening night where they played the Oxford Ladies in a friendly! On that first night Oxford ran in 15 uncontested tries. However our Ladies quickly showed that they’d put that game behind them!

The Didcot Ladies put in a full 40 minute end to end performance (20 minutes each way, 6 players a side on a 60x40m pitch)! Their defence was brilliant, which was reflected in the final score, however not just content to defend Didcot also saw great improvement going forward, with plenty of goal line pressure! The culmination of that attacking play was a superb try by Lisa Jones. A quick pass was made from the back of a tackle, just inside Didcot’s half, allowing Lisa to side step the retreating defence and then sprint for the left corner with the now onside defender unable to close the gap! It was amazing to watch and resulted in the biggest cheer of the night!

The final score was 5-1 to the Oxford Ladies, and when you think it was only 3 weeks ago that Oxford had won 15-0, its clear to see the progress and resilience of the Didcot players!

It was an inspiring night seeing the Ladies team growing in confidence and also to see the amount of fun and laughs being had. Fun is, afterall one of the core aims of the game! It’s fair to say that this week ended with a resounding “Bring on next week!”

Thanks to Claire Harry and Andy Pynegar for the match report!