Hayley goes for glory

Hayley G flew the flag for Letchworth today as our only representative at the RFUW's "High Performance Academy" (or HPA) - essentially a trial for the 2007/8 TDGs [the "elite" group of c30 girls given extra training by RFUW's leading coaches - Sasha was one last season].

So - making the ultimate sacrifice by missing Day Two of Rhythms of the World - it was off to palatial surroundings of Heytrop County Club near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. All manicured lawns, box hedges, 440+ acres, and hordes of Spanish language students sulkily sitting on the touchline because they couldn't play football.

The top girls from East, South East, South and Thames Valley who had not been in last year's TDG attended - about 30 in all - which promoted several parents to give an impromtu performance of what sounded to some of us like something vaguely reminiscent of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch ("You started at 8am? All right f'some . We'd be on t'road for an hour by then!". "A hour? You were lucky. By then we'd been driving so long that when we left my daughter was still a U14!". "U14, by 'eck by our daughter hadn't even bin born when we first climbed into t'car...").

Anyway, despite being drugged up to the eyeballs to keep her tonsillitus at bay and then injuring her hand again early on, Hayley seemed to cope well with some good breaks and a few typical tackles. Was well enough? We shall hear more this week - but its a tough call as RFUW will be only selecting about 20 girls from over 100 trialling at three centres this weekend.