Amesbury women 5 - Ellingham and Ringwood 34

Our women continued their unbeaten start to their National Championship Division 1 (South West) on Sunday, with a strong performance away at Amesbury in Wiltshire.

On a cold day, we started strongly and began to build up a sustained period of pressure. This resulted in the home side giving away a penalty 5 metres out. Playing out of position as a scrum half, Libby Peak tapped quickly and powered over just to the left of the posts for the opening try of the game, which captain Georgia Smith converted to give us a 7-0 lead.

As a team we were focused on starting well and continued to defend well and restrict the home team’s chances with ball in hand. Amesbury gave away another penalty 15 metres out and after another quick penalty, Lydia Barber drew the defender well, which allowed Samie Nicholls the opportunity to power over for a score in the left-hand corner to open up a 12-0 lead. The final score of the half came from some nice phase play from us, which drew in the Amesbury defence. Fly half Georgia Smith had some quick ball, which she released to wing Charlotte Harvey who stepped inside to score in the left-hand corner. This gave us a half time lead of 17-0.

We'd taken two injuries before half time and despite the movement of playing positions, we started the half brightly. After some strong carries by the forwards, Nina Hoadley found the space she needed and sped away to run half the length of the pitch and score under the posts. This gave us a 24-0 lead. After this point, the home team came back strongly and it was them who started to put us under pressure. They eventually opened up an overlap and Number 8 Emily Sheppy showed good pace and power to score in the right-hand corner and reduce the deficit to 24-5.

After this we tightened up our defence and started to apply pressure to the opposition again. This resulted in several turnovers. From one of these, we ere able to work some phases down the centre of the pitch before moving the ball quickly into space. Fleur Howcorft made a great run down the right-hand side of the pitch and offloaded to Nina Hoadley who ran a fantastic inside supporting line to go in for her second score of the afternoon. This brought the score to 29-5 with only 15 minutes to play. We had another turnover and after two phases Libby Peak picked up the pace and again showed her power to beat three players and score the final try of the afternoon in the left-hand corner. The final try made the score line 34-5.

After the game our vice-captain Jess Lawrance said: ‘It’s really pleasing to come away with a victory today. We worked for each other all afternoon and put a lot into place that we’ve worked on in training over the past few weeks. It’s also great to see how far our newer players have come on. They really stood up and performed today, which is great for their own confidence and the performance of the team as a whole.’