Sunday 6th Jan 08

Basford U15's v Aylesford Bulls

With Christmas a distant memory, the girls made the short trip across the Thames to play Aylesford Bulls.

Following on from the meeting between the two clubs at the Rochford Festival, and given that the majority of the girls out there today played in the Essex v Kent game in December, a close and hard fought game was on the cards.

Depleted by injury and holidays the Basford girls arrived subdued but confident.

From the whistle it became apparent that our forwards who have dominated games this season were not going to get it all their own way with some good tackling and surging runs being made by the Aylesford forwards in the early exchanges.

A good run from our backs freed Jessica to break for the line only to be tackled and brought down on the 5m line. Confidence was growing and as the first half wore on the backs combined to play some lovely ball across the field and touch down 3 times with Yas converting once.
Going in at half time 17-0 up, we were expecting a high scoring game, however Ayleford rallied straight from kick off and a surging run up field was briefly halted by our defence but some deft handling freed the ball from the maul and allowed Aylesford to go over in the corner.
From the resulting kick off, the Basford girls surged forward and again with the forwards in the thick off it, the ball was quickly fed out to the backs who combined to cross for the 4th try of the day.
From the kick off the ball was caught by Ellie who ran straight back towards the Aylesford try line, and some excellent defending held up play long enough for the girls to position themselves for another attack on the Aylesford line.
A quick ball from the ruck was spun out wide where Olivia was waiting and went over for try no 5.
Unfortunately just after this Frances who had been valiantly carrying on since injuring her knee way through the 1st half,twisted her knee again making a tackle and had to leave the field.
With the girls a player down, Aylesford really piled the pressure on, and were rewarded with a well worked try in the final minutes.
As the ref blew for full time both sets of players looked totally shattered having played at the same tempo throughout the game.

Full credit should go to Aylesford who despite falling behind early on never stopped running at our girls when they had the ball, and their defensive play was excellent.

It has been a good start to the new year with the girls carrying on that winning streak.

Tries: Jessica W, Yasmin P,Olivia S,Lucie W, Abbie C.
Cons: Yasmin P (1)

Well done to all the girls,not the easiest of games for the first game back after the break, but you all did yourselves and the club proud.

Next week another tough game beckons when we travel to the depths of Linconshire to play Spalding who took the girls to the wire in the Worthing festival last season.