Sunday 2nd March

Aylesbury and Bucks Jesters have cancelled our U15 and U18 matches for this Sunday so all please meet at the Letchworth club for training at 10am.

Herts 7s announcement too

Herts 7s venue has also now been confirmed. The tournament will be at Tabard RFC in Radlett on 18th May, with a closing date of 30th March.

In fact that closing date will I suspect be irrelevent. Our little county sevens is now a major national event (well, southern half of England) and there are only 16 places in each of the U18 and U15 events these are going to go. This will be first come, first served.

We are hoping to enter a U18 Letchworth team, a U15 Ampthill/Letchworth team, and maybe a mixed U18 Amptill/Letchworth "B" team as well so as to ensure that everyone gets a game and will be trying to get this finalised with our Beds colleagues asap.

10s venue announcements... a long trip wherever we go!

The venues for the regional rounds of the National 10s have been announced - and its a tricky choice, and a long trip, whatever we do.

The number of tounaments for 20th April have been severely slimmed down from ten last year to three - one in the North (Morpeth), one in the Midlands (Mellish, nr. Nottingham), and one in the South (Petersfield, Hampshire).

Last year we had a fantastic day in at Jimmies in Leicester for the East Midlands heat and ideally I think we wanted to go back again. Mellish would offer the same advanages (new opposition), but is another 30-40 minutes. Not out of the question.

But it does open the question of the southern heat which, by including theoretically everything from Essex and Kent to Cornwall, has its attractions too as its maybe slightly nearer and will also feature some new faces alongside some old ones (theoretically).

I reckon that Nottingham is still the more interesting venue - but its not for me to say. We have to get the entry in by 7th April to decide - so what do you all think?

Update on Six Nations

To update the entry below, England won again - 31-0 (their largest ever win in France) - to pretty much wrap up a third Grand Slam. Okay, still Scotland and Wales to play but rarely was there ever a more foregone conclusion, especially in the former game where the Scottish women seem to be vying with their men to see who can produce the worst results!

Incidentally, those members of the club with dual national qualifications who were somewhat disparaging about the strength of teams from the Emerald Isle might care to take a glance at the current standings...

The other Six Nations

While this weekend all attention will be focused on Paris for the [men's] Six Nations, Britain's most successful international rugby team will be continuing to generate about as much press coverage as Icelandic water ski-ing.

So for those who have missed it so far, England's women's team tomorrow face their biggest challenge in their bid to win their third successive Grand Slam when they meet France in town of St. Gratien on the outskirts of Paris. So far they have followed a 55-0 win over Wales with a 76-6 win over Italy. France, on the other hand, started with a fairly comfortable 43-15 victory in Edinburgh but then struggled to beat Ireland (historically the weakest Home Nation) at home, winning only 26-17.

England are therefore firm favourites to continue with a three year run of success that has seen them lose only one game - the 2006 World Cup Final against New Zealand - in the past three years. Since that game England have scored over 300 points in seven Six Nations games, conceding 18, and have also beaten USA (ranked five in the world) 34-0. Such is England's strength in depth that their "A" team is also unbeaten in internationals, despite playing almost exclusively against other countries' full-strength teams.

This all makes the media's near blackout of coverage of such a success story all the more remarkable. I don't think anyone is expecting live TV coverage, but it is not too much to expect for "expert" rugby commentators to at least a mention what this team is achieving (even if only to contrast this with the recent performances of the men's team!). This would be the situation in any other sport that I can think of - but not, it seems, rugby where our media experts seem to willfully ignore the women's team. Finding out whether or not the England team's run of success has continued on Saturday may require the utilisation of some high-powered magnifying glasses on Sunday morning.

Ludicrusly simple "Spot the Ball" competition...

EDF Energy - who sponsor the Anglo-Welsh Cup - are running this "Spot the Ball" competition to win tickets for the final. Its a nice idea, shame that it could not be made even mildly more challenging (a clue, should you need it,is to look at the shadows...)

If anyone fancies entering you can enter here. 250 tickets up for grabs, closing date 14th March.

Anyway I just mention it because, given our vast photographic archive, its a rather neat idea I thought that we could maybe execute a little better than EDF should we need a fundraiser, or even just for the fun of it.

So, for instance see below. With our entire coaching staff are cup-tied this Sunday you have the weekend off and a bit of spare time, so anyone care to guess which square the centre of the ball is in?

[Looking through the archives is cheating!]

Thursday Training

This Thursday (21st Feb), training for both U15s and U18s will start at 5.30pm.
Please make sure you bring your mouthguards.

Kettering take the honours

It was a very frosty morning but the pitches were well thawed out and the weather could not have been better for the afternoon matches at Kettering today.

The U15 match was between Kettering and Ampthill (with Letchworth's Laura playing for Ampthill) and the U18s match was between Kettering and Letchworth with 3 Ampthill U18s shared between the sides.

The U15s match was well contested with Kettering running out winners by 35-20. Letchworth's Laura had a good match for Ampthill contributing to the scoreline with a hat-trick of tries.

The U18s game was a very close match with Letchworth leading for most of the game thanks to a try in each half by Hayley but they were denied a commanding lead by a succession of last ditch, try-saving tackles by Kettering. It was a good all round performance by the Letchworth girls, however, a late flurry of tries by Kettering saw them run out deserved winners by 20-10. Nikki was named Letchworth Player of the Match.

As you can see from the photos, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon as Simon supervised the warm-up -

and when things got started Sasha was soon in the thick of the action -

and Mel followed suit, only being dispossessed 20 metres out from the try line -

When Nikki charged down a Kettering clearing kick the ball rebounded just over the dead-ball line -

Sasha continued to carve her way through the midfield -

and Nikki was denied a try by a matter of inches when this attack was stopped by a last ditch tackle -

Jess was also making breaks in midfield -

and was prevented from scoring by a fine tackle some 10 metres short of the line -

Meanwhile, in the forwards, Enily was capturing lineout ball -

Charlie was getting used to a different position -

and all of them were supporting each other -

Hayley's second try caused some consternation to her team-mates when, having crossed the try line in the corner, she proceeded to run through the Kettering defence a second time in order to ground the ball under the posts!

Letchworth scorers : U15

Tries : Laura (3)

Letchworth scorers : U18

Tries : Hayley (2)

Kettering : Sunday 17th February

The U18s away match at Kettering this Sunday is due to kick-off at 2pm and we will be meeting at Letchworth club at noon before heading north. If you have not already done so, please confirm your availability to Simon or Mike as soon as possible.

Kettering have also kindly offered an U15s fixture and we have invited Ampthill to join in that game. We need to let Kettering know how many players we can bring so please let Simon or Mike know as soon as possible if you can play.

Directions to the Kettering ground can be found on http://www.ketteringrugbyclub.co.uk/about/howtofindus.html.
Please let us know if you intend to travel directly there rather than calling at the Letchworth club en route.

Better off out?

Some may regret our not being in the National Cup this season, but from the bits and pieces that have been reaching me from here and there this year's competition is already causing considerable amounts of angst in some quarters... and it hasn't even kicked off yet.

The official letter, mentioned a week or so ago, does not seem to have calmed things. One has to be reasonably circumspect here, but suffice to say that in the section we might well have be playing in at least at least one club have - since that letter - complained to RFUW about the intentions of two other clubs to combine forces which they interpreted as being against both the letter and spirit of the competition rules. RFUW have rejected the complaint, as a result of which I reckon I can guess who will win not only that section but also probably the entire event as, on paper, this team makes Leo's look positively weak!

I will refrain from saying here where my views lie on this - and, come to that, the clubs involved - as I'd rather avoid having 200 multi-page emails to answer when I come back next week but if we get all this fuss from one cup competition played over only a couple of weekends then I dread to think what would happen if we were all in leagues (as has been suggested in some quarters)!

One huge advantage of a season largely based on friendly fixtures is that it avoids all this... nonsense. Clubs - if short of players - can combine and recombine in different ways each weekend as the need arises with the priority being only to ensure that as many girls - of all ages and abilities - get to play as much rugby as possible. New players can get on the field because, in the end, experience and team development is more important than the final result (you doubt that? I can think of several games we have lost, but have enjoyed, and even some we have won but without any great joy in the victory). But once you get into a situation where there is promotion and relegation and silverware to worry about each and every weekend then that cannot be possible. In a desparate hunt for points winning is all that matters and where then would there be room for new girls like, say, Georgie to join the game, or even players returning from a lengthly injury like Megan? It may be co-incidence that we now have more U18s than any other club in the county, but I like to think that it is because anyone can join this club, regardless of previous experience, and know that they will be welcomed and get a game!

I hope for all clubs in the National Cup that this fuss dies down, but its clear that events last year still rankle with many and you have to ask whether - as things stand - the Cup causes more harm than good.

Upcoming fixture and training reminder

Regional weekend so its a training this weekend at home at 10.00 for all bar one. Then usual training next Thursday, before separate games for U18s and (hopefully) U15s on the 17th.

U18s will be at Kettering, and U15s are due to have a game at Witney. For the latter we are going to need the support of Ampthill so watch this space.

Looking ahead a bit hopefully the Canadian school team will be visiting us around 9th March, but if that does not go ahead an interesting alternative may be a Development Day for non-regional players (it being a regional weekend) which is being run... by East Midlands. This will include both U15 and U18 players and it might be interesting to join Ampthill for the day and work with players on the other side of the border.

Be nice to your officials: RFUW

RFUW have issued Official Guidance on how to treat match officials (see the Herts blog). Quite what may have prompted it is impossible to say - the little electronic contretemps regarding a recent fixture of ours?

Probably not, because apparently the female game generally is developing a poor reputation in this area - which is odd considering that the only major headline concerning referees and female teams had been rather the other way...

Anyway - take a look at the guidance. It actually says very little that most players should not have known already, but its good to see it written down.

Sunday 3rd Feb : Matches cancelled

Everyone please note that the matches at Ampthill on Sunday have been cancelled.

As Simon is away this weekend, there will be no training tomorrow but we will resume our usual schedule on Thursday 7th February.

Sorry for any inconvenience.