26th March: Daventry & Newbold

A pleasent enough afternoon for once - not too hot, not too cold.

Particularly lacking Rosie at prop and Steph at fly, the U17s combined were grateful to include three Newbold girls in the team to take on Daventry. As is the way with last minute combinations it took a while for everyone to gel, which meant that Daventry were on the offensive in the first half rather more than might be considered comfortable and - against more experienced opposition - would have resulted in some severe punishment

Still, the defence held up well, Nim's defensive kicking was okay (though hitting touch more often would have been nice) and Hayley finally broke the deadlock at the end of the first half to give us a 12-5 lead.

After that I had to go off and ref the U14s, but a final score of 38-12 (five tries for Hayley) shows that things continued to improve in the second half. Still, Hayley says the rucking wasn't too hot and the opposition were getting through too many tackles before being brought down.

The U14s - with their continuing injury problems - also borrowed, two from Daventry and two from Newbold, to take on Newbold.

The first half was very even - two tries each and only a conversion between the sides. However the "lent" Newbold players changed in the second half and ... how can one say this? ... the new girls did not seem to play at the same level as those they replaced. This resulted in some familiar frustrations and a 31-15 victory that (overall) flattered Newbold. That said they have two or three very good players and the Letchworth tackling was too often pulling shirts rather than grabbing legs. But no doubt Nikki will say more on her site...