Our regional stars make their mark

Our four regional stars - Fern, Hayley, Nim and Sasha - had pretty good days yesterday.

Fern reports that she was a bundle of nerves before her game up in Manchester for East Midlands against North West. You will recall that her debut for the region was postponed two weeks ago when any chance of her coming on against East in the second half of the fixture was blown away by a hailstorm that resultedin the game ending early.

East Midlands won that game reasonably comfortably, and by the sounds of destroyed their hosts this weekend 44-0 in what Fern calls an "awesome" performance which she played a full part in, being on the field throughout the game. Looks like they must be one of the favourites for the tournament in May.

East, on the other hand, continue to fail to meet their potential. First half against Yorkshire was largely the same as the game against East Midlands, but things improved in the second half and the game was nearly snatched at the end when a last-minute penalty from Lizzel Heather (Kettering) just missed the posts, East going down 7-5.

Things were much better for the second game against North East, which was won 24-0. Sasha nearly scored in this one, being tackled five metres short after a lung-bursting 50 metre break. She then (allegedly) held on ("instead of passing to me!" - Hayley) and compounded this by attempting to debate the issue with the referee.

One interesting fact - although Hayley and Nim were not the field thoughout the day, East only scored points when they were playing. Indeed East have yet to score a single point this season when Nim has been on the sidelines. Could be sheer co-incidence of course, or some sort of strange hypnotic power that Nim has over the teams (a super-power which, unfortunately, only gets switched on when she is wearing a regional shirt!).