With our hearts of gold and muscles of steel NMRFC ladies took Birmingham by storm. We got off the bus pretty bleary eyed and sleepy. We had 15 mins to get warmed up and every girl was completely switched on from the whistle. We received the ball and within the first 10 minutes Emma bagged us our first try with the ball going through the backs and a couple of cheeky loops.

We didn’t run up enough on a kick and when one of their girls caught the ball we didn’t react fast enough and she slipped through to score their first try. We switched back on and got really close to our try line and kept on crashing the ball in until I broke through and scored a try

In the second half their performance slipped massively and we ran circles around them. Their tackling was poor; they just tried to grab the ball from our hands instead of committing. They held us off for a little bit but we eventually got another try (not before the scandal of one of their girls holding up Lucie’s try after she had put the ball down, what a pisstake). Our fourth try came as the ball was popped off to Emma and she drove through 3 people before scoring. I am so proud of every girl that played, well done!

Our play dropped momentarily and they managed to break through and score their second try. The last 10 minutes was incredibly tough but despite our tiredness, our heads stayed in the game and we played our hardest.