Friendly Win in the Rain

Despite appalling weather and a last minute change of pitch due to the original being a little damp in places(!), the game against Old Albanians went ahead as planned.

The girls exerted the early pressure but good defence from OAs kept them at bay for a while until a good move ended with Ellie Gisbourne scoring the game’s first try. OAs came back at Pulborough but some good defence forced a turnover and an excellent break and well timed offload out of the tackle put Ellie in the clear and she broke free to score under the posts, then adding the conversion to give Pulborough a 12-0 lead.

The conditions made it difficult for us to play our normal running style but the girls adapted well and used the forwards to punch holes in the OA defence close to the breakdowns. One such passage of play went through numerous phases before the girls spread the ball wide and Charlotte Williams crashed over from an outside centre position to increase our lead, with Maddy Buckland adding the conversion.

However OAs were not going to give up quietly and they continued to exert pressure of their own. Despite resolute defence from girls, some excellent support play finally broke down the Pulborough defence just before half time to make the score 19-5 at the break.
The second half began with OAs continuing to give as good as they got and when a Pulborough attack broke down, they broke away for their second try and reduced the deficit to just 9 points.

However, Pulborough were not to be denied and further tries from Ellie and Erin Collins gave Pulborough a 29-10 win after an excellent performance from the whole side.