Some rugby was also played....

Brilliant day, brilliant weather, pitches a bit hard - and some great memories from "Canada Day" yesterday.

For those that missed it a slip by Katie when in the lead on the last leg of the "Broomstick" game resulted in a 3-0 win for Canada following their wins at both "Twix" and "Crackers". We regained some pride with wins at "Over-and-Under" and the "Boatrace", but it was all over by then as our had visitors showed superior skill when it came to anything that involved eating or drinking very quickly...

However Nim stole the show with the "Ball-and-chairs" with a barn-stroming 51! "Bomber" also proved popular, especially for Robyn from Weldon who had the honour of being fourth engine...

Earlier in the day there had been some rugby as well.

To be honest I can't remember too much of the actual games - it was a long day! - but I do recall that he combined Letchworth and Sudbury team ("Letchbury") played Weldon first. It was a tight game, and we were soon 5-0 down to a well taken try in the bottom corner. This was pulled back to 5-5 at half-time. After a period of forward pressure (and I think we narrow shaded it up front) Carla crashed through to put us 10-5 up, which was cricially converted by Stamerz (?) which mean that when Weldon missed a conversion a few minutes later we retained a 12-10 lead, extended to 17-10 at the end when Sudbury's Jess touched down with the last move of the game.

Letchbury followed this with a rather tired and scrappy win over the Ely/ Peterborough/ Towcester "Barbarians" team - Hayley scoring a last minute try that gave us a 10-7 win which we probably didn't deserve against a side that had barely been introduced an hour before.

Its worth saying that Debbie from Ely, who was coaching the team, did a remarkable job in pulling this team together. They had actually drawn 10-10 with Aylesbury 45 minutes or so earlier and did pretty well against Weldon at the end - they lost that game about 17-0 I think but were certainly not outclassed.

In other other game of the day Aylesbury went down something like 24-5 to Weldon, who were probably playing at their best in that fixture having woken up from hybernation against "Letchbury" but not yet showing that they were in any way tired.

The maple leaf files in Hertfordshire

The Canadian maple leaf flag flies alongside that of Letchworth on a cold spring afternoon, indication that I E Weldon have arrived.

Impressively kitted out and wide awake after some 15 hours or travel they touched down at Wymondley at around 2.30 yesterday, to be greeted by me, Joe, Katie, Nikki, Hayley and Carla - with some of us staying to watch their training session.

This will be Wymondley's first use as a base for a sports team - and actually it works very well, just a shame its about two miles out of town!

And today is the day for the big game...

Looking ahead...

"Letchworth Garden City Festival

Organised by Letchworth Arts Centre in conjunction with Hertfordshire County Council. A multi-site community festival for young people and children, celebrating their achievements and providing events to help them gain new experiences and recognition. Including: a ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest, sport and art activities. All happening on Broadway Gardens, Howard Gardens, Hogs Head Piazza, Letchworth Garden City. See press nearer time for details. Sat 30th June - Sun 1st July "

Any of you round that weekend? Would be a good time to put on some sort of stall/ display/ come-and-try-it (tag/ tackle bags/ or something?) to get in a few new players (or come to that raise a bit of money, if the stall was set up the right way). If its a decent day there will be loads of people around, especially of the "target" age!

A reasonable amount of time to come up with a few ideas - so get thinking!

Hertitage foundation to support "Canada Day"

Our wonderful landlords, Letchworth Garden City Hertitage Foundation, have again shown their commitment to supporting the girls' sport by agreeing to support our "International" Day on Wednesday.

After their invaluable support for last year's Herts Sevens the Hertitage's support will enable us to produce a match programme for the event, as well as meeting other costs.

Stuart Kenny, Director General of the Foundation, will hopefully be around some time during the day, so if you see him around make pass on your thanks.

National 7s - what a line up! But...

• Cramberleigh
• Darlington Mowden Park
• Exeter Saracens
• Paviors
• Reading
• Tynedale Panthers
• Welwyn
• Westcliff
• Wimborne
• Worcester
• ... and us.

A who's who of the best U17 teams in the country? No, not quite, just the teams who have so far entered the U17 competition at this year's National Sevens - a dream line up (or nightmare, depending on your view of things!).

I mean, seriously - a few big names missing yet perhaps (Kettering, Spalding, Buxton, Worthing) but does this sound like the best collection of U17 teams ever to gather in one place, or what?

So its a bit of a worry that there is a threat to it... because not enough adults have entered their competition. Apparently unless your "elders and betters" get their collective fingers out reasonably sharpish RFUW are threatening to "review" (ie. cancel) the event.

So if you know any adult players could you have a word with them? Like now? Otherwise the best (and actually, thinking about it, last) one-day U17 competition ever might just never happen!

Will we see you at the Sevens and Tens?

This is - uniquely - a post directed at the our visiting audience.

Are we (Letchworth) going to see you at the Regional 10s and the National 7s? Letchworth have entered both (well at U17 level anyway) but I am getting lots of digs from HQ about encouraging entries.

So come on you lot - its fun!! Honest! The Tens up at Jimmies should be interesting (or wherever you might be going) and much more open to "ordinary" clubs than that National Cup.

And as for the Sevens - fantastic day out. How could you possibly think of missing it? Not just for the elite - I mean we have only won one game in two years but it hasn't stopped our girls sticking a big red ring round the date on the calendar from the moment it was announced (then changed, then moved...).

Incientally on the subject of the National Sevens we'd also ideally like to enter our U14s but don't really have enough. If anyone fancies combining in the age group let me know!

So come on guys, get HQ off my back and get your entries in. And we'll see you there!

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!).

Revised schedule for Wednesday's festival

With more information now available about likely player numbers for Wednesday - and the news that local press and Stuart Kenny (Director General of the Hertitage Foundation) will be coming along - the timetable of matches has been amended a bit.

Well, quite a lot in fact

The main aim of the day is for everyone to play against the Canadians, and also to give their fairly large party as much game time as possible. So games involving I E Weldon will be 20-25 minutes each way, and other "warm-up" games between English sides about 10 minutes each (so we stay within IRB playing time rules).

In addition as the encore for the combined Letchworth and Sudbury National Cup team "Letchbury" will (in effect) live one more time as we will combine with Sudbury for the day (otherwise we would have to play them - again!) as one of the three "teams" in the festival, alongside a largely free-standing Aylesbury, and a Barbarian side of Peterborough, Ely, Towcester and Aylestone St James.

As most girls in the Letchworth and Sudbury teams now know each other quite well, and with the press and "VIPs" coming at c1pm, "Letchbury" will now start the afternoon against the Canadians while the other two teams will get a game or two to warm up. The result of all this is the following timetable:

• 12.45 Letchbury v I E Weldon (25 mins each way)
• 1.20 Aylesbury v Barbarians (10 mins each way)
• 2.00 Aylesbury v I E Weldon (25 mins each way)
• 2.20 Letchbury v Barbarians (10 mins)
• 3.10 Barbarians v I E Weldon (25 mins)
• 3.30 (optional) Letchbury v Aylesbury (10 mins)

We can also obviously move players around a bit if any side is short for their Canadian games.

All of the teams promise to be pretty useful and challenging opposition - although a "scratch" side even the "Barbarians" will be packed with regional players from at least two regions.

Post-match entertainment, Wednesday

Inspired by Westcliff's little Twix-eating contest when we were down there the other month, I'd like to do something similar on Wednesday. Ideally what I want to do is have several similar "games", all of which would be England vs Canada in some sort of way.

So for example...

• The Twix game.
• A (non-alcoholic for U18s) "boat race"
• The chair game which Joe may vaguely remember from the coaches' dinner
• "Over and under" (yes - the coaching thing for small children)

Basic criteria should be that they should be fun, amusing for spectators to watch, competitive, require no specific skill, if possible involving several people from each team, and have a potential for mild embarrasment for those taking part.

Ideas please!!!

Tour programmes now available!

The official, limited edition, tour programme is now available from Mike Alcock. Only £2 buys you a unique full-colour guide to the tour.

Not only that but it is also a perfect souviener of the "historic" 2006/7 season. Something to keep forever and look back on, boring your children to tears with tales of "when I was your age we used to do proper, healthy, outdoor things"

Or "look at this - can you guess which one is me? No dear - that's one of the coaches...".

Or maybe "there I am - standing next to her. Of course that were years before she were famous/ infamous/ convicted for a major international banking fraud [delete as applicable]"

So buy one on Sunday - you'll never regret it!

Should we take ads?

I want everyone's views on this (including our many "visitors"). Should we take averts on this blog?

Google - who run the service on which it is based - offer a service whereby "relevent " adverts appear on the blog (in a descrete column or banner - no pop-ups), and from which we would derive some sort of income via click-through.

We can also put in specific ads of our own.

Now on the plus side this means money. Not much, but something. On the downside it means clutter and a lack of direct control over what is actually advertised (rugby- and sport-related links will dominate I expect, but I'd be slightly worried about what the advert engine might produce if it picked up on combinations of words like "girls" and "mud". For example).

To get an idea of what we are talking about here see http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/

What do you all think?

This Sunday

Training at Letchworth for non-Regional people at 10.00 (U17s) and 10.30 (U14s).

I'll be picking up sleeping bags at c10.00 (before 10.30 anyway) if that is possible as I have leave to get Nim and layley up to Ely at 10.30.

Finding Letchworth

This is kinda fun. Well, in a very geeky sort of way maybe. Basically I've just discovered that one of the sites that tracks this blog records the search terms that people have used in search engines to find us.

Of just over 12,000 hits about 1,800 have come via search engines, with 371 different search terms being used to find us, some of which are a bit bizarre (various combinations of "girls" and "mud" feature occasionally, for example). There are, however, some runaway winners in the search term popularity stakes - "Letchworth girls rugby", "Letchworth girls blogger", and "Letchworth rugby girls" accounting for about a third of all "hits" between them.

But even these search terms pale into insignificance behind one search. This one search that accounts for an impressive 15% of all hits on the site made via a search engine. And that search term is (roll of drums please...)

natalie threlfall (266 hits)

Even if you add up all the varients of "sasha" you only get barely half that (134 in fact).

Our other popular people on search engines (if you combine variations of search term) are Fern (85), Rachel (58), Randy (19), Jess (8), Joe (7), and Nim (6). Emily, Nichola, Hayley G, Katie, Nikki, Laura, Hayley A, and Carla have also featured in search terms at one time or another.

Other search terms are fairly predictable, though why the person searching for "train times saturday morning ely to beckenham junction" thought they were going to get the answer from our blog I cannot begin to imagine....

National Cup: U17 photos now available.

Phil has done his stuff again for Sunday's National Cup - see here. Loads of really good ones, including....

Calling all mums!

We know you really want to get out there on the pitch and show your daughters how to REALLY play the game!

Well - now you could have the chance! Ann-Marie Sand - captain of Barnet Elizabethans Women’s Rugby Club - is interested in promoting Women’s Touch Rugby this summer.

It is planned to hold an pilot event at Barnet Elizabethans on Sunday 17th June to be (if successful) followed by further events in July, August and September 2007 (with an eye of the men's Rugby World Cup in September and October 2007).

The games would be six or seven-a-side; squads of 12, rolling substitutions, etc., and no more than two regular rugby players in each team on the pitch at any time - other players to be newcomers, the key objective being to encourage new players. No age detail are given, but even if it is over 18 you could still have Nim and Rachel leading you...

The festival would be run with groups of 4-5 teams playing games 7-10 minutes each way with a social activity to follow the event.

A progress meeting will be held at Barnet Elizabethans in due course, but if you are interested in the meanwhile contact Beverley Collier (BeverleyCollier@rfu.com)

Canadians publish full itinerary

I E Weldon have published their full programme for their short (but packed!) tour of England (well, Hertfordshire really) next week.

Yes - that is NEXT WEEK so I'll be asking for those sleeping bags by Sunday, or ideally by this Wednesday.

Anyway - they will be getting on a coach next Monday at 5pm (10pm our time - so spare a thought for them before you sleep), will arrive at Gatwick about 12 hours later, and at Wymondley about 2-3 hours after that.

Somehow words like "shattered" spring to mind here, along with other less printable comments, but regardless they plan to train at Wymondley before going in a "walking tour of Letchworth" - which is obviously where you lot come in (unless you want to spy on the training session of course) as we'll need a few guides. Or even scouts...

Following day is our "festival", after which they have a day in London before leaving Wymondley on Friday morning.

On Friday afternoon they play Welwyn (3pm if anyone wants to go and watch/support them) and on Saturday they play Hertford (3.30pm), before leaving for home on Monday.

ANYWAY... 

I think the Alcocks have already said they'd show the visitors the sights of Letchworth, but if we could have a few more of you that would be a help. We can either walk them into town via the Greenway/Willian/Muddy Lane or - if there are sufficient parents and its raining - drive them in.

Let's guess a departure from Wymondley of about 5pm - so ideas for where to take them please. Game of touch in the Town Square? Or down to the new chippy for a battered mars bar? If it is raining swimming might be an option. What would interest you?

IDEAS PLEASE!!

More regional fixtures

For those playing - or planning to go and watch - the U17 festival at Rugby School on Bank Holiday Monday the draw has been sneaked out on the RFU (but not RFUW) website (thank you Wimborne for spotting it).

The groups are:

Group 1: South West (North), Thames Valley, East Midlands
Group 2: West Midlands, South, North West
Group 3: South East, Yorkshire, East
Group 4: South West (South), North East, WRW

East fixtures: 12.30 v Yorkshire, 1.15 v South East
East Midlands fixtures: 11.45 v South West (North), 12.30 v Thames Valley

Semi-finals (bowl, plate and cup) 2.15 and 2.50. Finals 3.45 and 4.15.

U14 fixtures are on the Herts blog.

National Cup: a tale of two good days out

News from our U14s (playing with the "Hertfordshire Barbarians") is a bit thin at the moment, but after a win in their opening fixture they lost the next two, finishing third overall. In actual fact this was an impressive performance considering that in the end they only had twelve players, thanks to illness, injury (including our own "small" Hayley's broken elbow),and so on - so those girls had to play all three games without a break. Which I gather they did - against some pretty tough opposition too.

** Coach Simon Shutler has published a full report on the Herts website. **

Meanwhile "Letchbury" (or was it "Sudworth"? We really will have to agree out team names beforehand if we do this again!) U17s put in a truly "Legendary" performance at a pleasantly sunny Camberley.

Drawn first up against to play favourites Welwyn (who seemed to field a number of new faces, though Sasha said she knew a few from TDGs) our largely untried combination did extraordinarily well. Certainly it was impressive to see the first-half scrums where the Letchbury pack - many of whom do not even play county rugby - were more than match Welwyn's regional all-stars! Maybe if Joe hadn't switched the front rows at half time the result might have been narrower than the eventual 17-0 - Welwyn's second try certainly coming as a result of their pack capitalising on a now less powerful Sudworth front row. But the policy is always to play everyone fairly, and in the end even this pack was holding their multi-talented opposition - and by the players' reactions at the end of the game it was clear which team felt they had performed to their highest abilities.

Bouyed up by that - and now getting used to each other - Letchbury now took the other two-club combination "Ivelbridge" (Ivel Barbarians combined with Bridgewater), from Somerset. Very much your typical southern team with a fast back line but limited forward power, Ivelbridge had lost their opening game to Wimbourne 7-0 but came out of the blocks impressively. However the combination of Letchworth weight and Sudbury finesse really came into its own - the former stopping Ivels advance, and the latter shooting away to score. By half time Sudworth were 12-0 up, thanks to Sudbury's Jess using her "height" to sneak underneath the Ivelbridge defence and score under the posts. Well, it looked like that from the touchline because how she managed to get through other than by tunneling underneath is anyone's guess. Sasha added the extra two points, about which we will presumably hear for the next year or so.

Two more tries in the second half - including a Hayley special (scored despite her having been injured against Welwyn - thank you Iboprofen the wonder drug!) resulted in a famous 22-0 win over one of the best teams in the south-west.

News now filtered through that Welwyn had lost to Wimborne 7-5, which meant that a win over Dorset's finest would possibly see Letchbury into the final. In the end, though, Wimborne were staggeringly good and won comfortably 26-0. Sudworth could point to the smaller pitch, and could suggest that maybe if the game had come earlier and we'd been able to field a fit Hayley (who by now was asleep in the back of a car) and Stamerz it might have been different - like it might have only been about 20-0! Because Wimborne were just superb in all divisions of the game (even the forwards were pretty good, amazingly so for a southern side). Apparently many of the team are only 14 or 15, which is pretty scary!

And in the end it was also perhaps right to have a national club competition (all be it southern area final) won by the only team that seemed to come from just one club. Good luck to them in the final!

East Region women's and girls' rugby awards

East region are now taking nominations for their third set of annual awards (listed below).

The awards are for anyone who has played or worked in women's or girls rugby in the region - not just those associated with the regional teams. And ANYONE can send in nominations.

Past winners have included Hayley (U14 player of the year 2005/6) and me (Volunteer of the Year 2006/7). Let's keep up the club's winning record!

You just need to give the persons name, club, award to be nominated for, and a few lines as to why they should win.

Awards are won by the most nominations so get voting!

Nomination form below...

The Awards are:

SENIOR PLAYER OF THE YEAR

UNDER 17 PLAYER OF THE YEAR

UNDER 14 PLAYER OF THE YEAR

CLUB OF THE YEAR

MANAGER/COACH OF THE YEAR

THE UNSUNG HERO AWARD

VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR

COUNTY TEAM OF THE YEAR.

THE OUTSTANDING ACHIVEMENT AWARD

EAST REGION NOMINATION FORM

AWARDS 2006/07

	SENIOR PLAYER OF THE YEAR
PLAYERS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON
	UNDER 17 PLAYER OF THE YEAR
PLAYERS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON
	UNDER 14 PLAYER OF THE YEAR
PLAYERS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON
	CLUB OF THE YEAR
CLUB NAME
REASON
	COUNTY TEAM OF THE YEAR.
COUNTY NAME
REASON
	MANAGER/COACH OF THE YEAR
PERSONS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON
	THE UNSUNG HERO AWARD
PERSONS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON
	VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
PERSONS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON
	THE OUTSTANDING ACHIVEMENT AWARD
PERSONS NAME
CLUB/S
REASON

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EAST RFUW, 27 Rainsthorpe, South Wootton, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, PE30 3UF

Alternatively, email to eastrfuw@btinternet.com