Welwyn U15 Girls - RAF 10s winners

Match report U15s – RAF Girls Festival 6th October 2019 {ALL GAMES]

This weekend saw 13 of the team available for the tournament together with our injured mascot Grace Webster. Having opted to decline Jonathan’s request for a very early start the team arrived ready to play their first game at 10.00am. After a few delays, the starting 10 took to the pitch to play their first league game against Hitchin. The team adapted well to playing 10s rugby from the off, keeping their width and not bunching too much. Unfortunately, Hitchin were no match for the girls and Welwyn comfortably won the game however they did concede their only try of the day during the match. The scores recorded at the side of the pitch differed somewhat from what was recorded by the tournament officials however this is to be expected as there had been a number of last minute changes due to team dropping out and referees not being available so for some of the day it was a little chaotic as is often the case at tournaments.

The next three league games were against Gosford, Basingstoke and Old Northamptonians were like the first with Welwyn winning these comfortably. The only difference was none of these teams were able to cross Welwyn’s try line. So, at the end of the league games it was 24 tries for and one try against Welwyn. Great rugby. Unfortunately, due to time constraints the play offs were cancelled which would have seen Welwyn play OAs so the tournament was decided on points, having won all their games Welwyn and OAs were level which meant bonus points came into play. Having scored more tries Welwyn were the winners by one point. A nice result for the girls having lost out to OAs on a try count at the Worthing festival two years ago.

The girls had a very enjoyable day and respected the half game rule so they all just about played the same amount of rugby. Highlights saw Tia Stevens (prop) leading the chase at the restarts, Livi-Grace Hunt playing a great couple of halves at scrum half, Katie Drage powering her way over the try line a number of times, we won’t mention the slip, Sophia Botterman leading the singing and dancing during the warm-up drills, Clare Feeney getting angry in the mauls, ripping the ball from the opposition, Charli Knibbs being fearless when trying out the position of full-back for the first time, Natalie Randall realising that the front row can be as fun as playing no.8, Maggie Bristow cutting more of her amazing lines through the opposition defence, Rachel Neilson showing no fear playing both on the wing and at second row, Ruby Chestreman-Smith scoring her first try of year and extracting £5 from her Dad’s wallet as her reward, Molly Mellett running rings around the opposition wingers, Madeline Robb being her usual snippy self around the rucks and scrums and Millie Hare bringing up the rear or should I say bring the ball up from the rear (fullback) with her usual outstanding pace to punish the opposition. The other highlight was watching or listening to the girls singing between games, X factor her they come.