National Cup venues announced!

At last we know where we will be on 25th.

Those U14s who are in the Hertfordshire Barbarians team will be at Petersfield in Hampshire, and the U17s will be at Camberley in Surrey (home of "Cramberleigh"). In practice these aren't that far apart, and the girls clubs often play together as a single team.

The U14s will be up against Cranberleigh (from Surrey), Ellingham and Ringwood (Hampshire), and Thornbury (Gloucestershire), while the U17s will face Ivel Barbarians (Somerset), Wimbourne (Dorset) and Welwyn (name seems vaguely familiar...).

Both days will be a round-robin tournament with the winners qualifying for the final on 15th April. Yes, that is when we are on tour in Devon which might be seen as indication of a certain lack of confidence by your team management but... well, when the tour was organised we quite possibly, in all honesty, didn't expect to get this far (certainly based on last season's performances) and if you do get through then... it'll be an interesting problem. On the plus side the coach is booked - just might have a different destination on the front!

What can be said about our opponents? Welwyn and Cranberleigh need no intriduction as we've played them already. We also played Wimborne at the National Sevens last year - its the game featured on this month's page in the calendar. Yes - the one played in a monsoon! They are in the same league as Worthing and Havant, and their website has some interesting match reports.

When it comes to the "unknowns" I had a look round on the web to see what I could find. Answer... not a lot!

Ellingham & Ringwood are from the New Forest I think, have a U14 and a Womens team, a fixture list that is a year out of date, and a rather different taste in calendars...

Thornbury are from Gloucestershire and their U17s reach the National Cup Final last season (no idea if they won or not - not even the RFUW website provides that information). Beyond that ... who knows? as their various websites (and they have many) are almost devoid of any information about their girls' teams. Well, I couldn't find anything so if it is there its well hidden. Going by their fixture list the girls play no games at all...

Ivel Barbarians are the most informative, seem genuinely proud of their girls, and do actually have some information on their U17s... though its not been updated for a few months as Sasha's potential nemesis is still the main story.

So, for what its worth, I think we win on websites!

But a thought. Why do so many clubs - even (especially?) clubs like those above with damn good girls' teams - give them such poor coverage? Why do most girls club websites not even have up-to-date fixture lists (like not even this season's)?